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Supporting employees entering the world of work for their first 'proper office job'

Does anyone have any resources/information which they could share or recommend to help us support young people who join the company when it's their first 'proper office job' after leaving education.  I'm genuinely not meaning to be dismissive of any weekend/part time jobs they may have had when undertaking their studies but we have now had a couple of occasions when youngsters joining our workforce are severely lacking in general workplace etiquette/behaviours.  We are sympathetic as when you're that age 'you don't know what you don't know' but it has highlighted to us that there is an issue to be addressed so we are thinking of developing an additional section of our employee handbook specifically relating to 'if this is your first job' to include some fundamentals around the basics of how to  communicate with colleagues and other things that those of us who have been in the workplace for years just take for granted. If anyone has any ideas, thoughts or can signpost to useful resources it would be greatly appreciated!

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  • Hello, sorry I don't have any resources in hand particularly but I probably wouldn't market the information to first jobbers in particular. In my experience even the people who have come in with experience haven't necessarily known how to behave! I would say that if you have a really good induction process and make it absolutely clear what is expected in week one to all employees that makes it so much easier. It's also about looking at the culture as a whole - are management and the people who have worked there for a while setting a good example? If not then management need to rethink the boundaries of behavior.

    There is no harm in tailoring the induction slightly to those who are in their first job but fundamentally the rules for all should be the same. If people are not communicating properly or behaving as they should then it's a performance management issue IMO.
  • The book 'The Rules of Work' is something I've shared with people in the past. It's definitely a bit dated (or at least the copy I have on my shelf is; it may well have been improved in more recent versions) but a lot of its core messages are on point around the unspoken rules of office life - being well presented, not gossiping, being cheerful, having personal standards/not being dishonest, asking questions, etc.

    It might be a helpful place to start!
  • In reply to Nina Waters:

    Thanks Nina, that sounds just what we're looking for, so will look it up.
  • In reply to Rhianna:

    I do understand your point and we do talk about expectations in induction and also are advocates of modelling behaviour across the teams but there is a difference between that and the fundamentals which it is quite easy to forget that a young person simply doesn't know; and as someone also involved in the charity and education sectors in addition to my corporate day job, trying to support young people to develop those softer skills for the work place is definitely something that is needed.
  • In reply to Nicola:

    Totally agree - there is a difference between wearing the same shirt to school for a week and turning up in an office in the same shirt for 5 days Nauseated face and no amount of Lynx will negate that difference