Are College Students Emphasizing the Right Employment Skills?

We hear a lot about what skills are needed within the workplace from the perspective of the employer but we do not often hear about student perspectives. Research helps highlight how undergraduate and graduate students view the necessary skills to be successful in the workplace. It is surprising to find that both undergraduate and graduate students have some similarities but also some differences in their skill perception. 

Employers are regularly looking for a whole host of necessary skills from recent graduates. At 2006 survey entitled Are They Ready to Work found that employers valued work ethic, written and oral communication, teamwork / collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving, and ethics /social responsibility. With over 400 employer participants the survey can be seen as a strong benchmark for recruiter needs.

A survey conducted by Ingbretsen (2009) helped to further lend support to the skills employers request from recent graduates. Such skills were communication skills, work ethic, teamwork, and analytical skills. Such employers desire to find employees that know how to work in groups and use their analytical skills to solve important organizational problems. 

What employers view as important isn’t necessarily what students feel is important. Understanding the differences in perceptions might help narrow the gap through further education and encouragement. If employers are requesting one thing and new employees are emphasizing another then there is bound to be some initial friction as graduates adjust to new work roles.

Research conducted by English, Manton, Sami and Dubey (2012) helped to shed light on the differences in opinion between undergraduate and graduate students between the characteristics needed in the workplace.  A total of 153 graduate students and 360 undergraduate students were surveyed on 26 characteristics needed to be successful in the workplace. All of the students were either from a Business Administration or MIS course at A&M University.

Results: 

-Integrity and Honesty were ranked first for both graduate and undergraduates.

-Strong work ethic was ranked second for both graduate and undergraduates.

-Both graduate and undergraduate students focused more on intrinsic qualities that included integrity, good work ethic, listening skills, common sense, self motivated, positive work attitude, maturity, problem solving ability and critical thinking skills.

-Undergraduates ranked maturity and critical thinking skills as higher than graduate schools.

-Both graduates and undergraduates ranked a positive attitude as high.

-The lowest rankings for both graduate and undergraduate students was cultural fit, prior work experience, extracurricular activities, and knowledge of a second language.

-Both graduate and undergraduate students ranked writing skills lower than studies conducted by others.

Analysis:

The study helps to create greater understanding of how undergraduate beliefs adjust when entering into graduate students. This also emphasizes how employer’s perspectives may not be the same as new employees entering into the market. Even with a number of differences there are plenty of similarities that can be emphasized for shared perspectives. Colleges can also provide stronger emphasis on employer desired characteristics while employers can enhance employee expectations through their training programs limiting any negative effects of divergence of beliefs.

English, D., Manton, E., Sami A. & Dubey, A. (2012). A comparison of the views of college of business graduate and undergraduate students on qualities needed in the workplace. College Student Journal, 46 (2).

Ingbretsen, R. (2009, February 18). What employers really look for when hiring a college graduate. Retrieved from http://searchwarp.com/swa437827-What-Employers-Really-Look-For-When-Hiring-ACollege-Graduate.htm

The Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and Society for Human Resource Management. Are they really ready to work? 21 Century Skills

Do Abusive Managers Destroy Employee Creative Motivation?

Employees often complain about the personal impact of abusive behavior by management and how this impacts their daily productivity. New research helps highlight how abusive behavior can impact creativity in the workplace and lower the ability of employees to contribute to problem solving within an organization. Understanding how abusive mindsets are contagious in the workplace is important for understanding how to develop workplaces that push for higher levels of employee performance.

The skill of leadership is important in businesses that seek to overcome their next market challenge and make their way to the top. Transformational leadership is positively associated with creative performance (Shin & Zhou, 2003). Leaders who inspire and give a proper path are more pragmatic in their performances and therefore lead to higher levels of employee creative contributions.

The reason why leadership can have such an impact on organizations is because of the way they perceive their employees. Those leaders who label additional effort by employees as citizenship behavior versus ingratiation view and reward their employees at a higher level (Eastman, 1994).  Leaders and managers create precisely the type of behaviors they view their employee with. A leader or manager who perceives employees as lazy, unproductive, and ignorant are likely to create employees who mimic this behavior.

If the very leaders on the top view employees in such a negative way the belief system will pass down through the layers of managers and impact how employees behave and view themselves. Findings help highlight how there is a cascading effect of leadership whereby middle-level managers are a pivotal psychological link between leaders and frontline workers (Zohar & Luria, 2005). The mannerisms and perceptions of leadership filters throughout the entire organization and management is the connecting point of passing these perceptions onto employees to prime behavioral expectations.

When these expectations are in a negative light the overall performance of employees is damaged. Particularly their willingness to engage in and solve problems is hampered and this lowers future growth prospects of the firm. Creativity is about free thinking, problem solving, and sharing those perspectives with others to create new economic realities. Employees have no incentive to do this if their ideas are automatically discounted due to poor management perception.

Research by Liu, Liao & Loi (2012) was conducted in a large Midwestern automobile company and had 22 departments, 108 teams and 762 employees participate in the study. The study attempted to determine the impact of abusive leadership and abusive management on worker creativity. It also analyzed the concept of cascading layers of management and how this impacts performance expectations and transference of beliefs.

Results:

-Abusive supervision by top management creates likelihood that middle level managers will also be more abusive and this damages creativity. 

-How employees perceive the reasons (two perceptions) for this abuse can either exacerbate or mitigate its effectiveness.

-Departmental leadership abusive behavior has an impact on team leader behaviors (cascading layers of management) which impacts team member behavior.

Analysis: 

The report supports attribution theory that indicates that employee characteristics and team leader characteristics interact and influence the environment. Furthermore, the research also supports social learning theory by indicating that group behaviors and organizational culture are formed by these unique attributes. Employees learn to accept their station in life or resist against such poor treatment. To change poor behavior within an organization is to ensure you have a leader with transformational skills, proper management training, and strong employee attributes.

Eastman, K. (1994). In the eyes of the beholder: an attributional approach to ingratiation and organizational citizenship behavior. Academy of Management, 37: 1379-1391

Liu, D., Liao, H. & Loi, R. (2012). The dark side of leadership: a three-level of investigation of cascading effective of abusive supervision on employee creativity. Academy of Management Journal, 55 (5). 

Shin, S. & Zhou, J. (2003). Transformational leadership, conservation, and creativity: Evidence from Korea.  Academy af Management Journal, 46: 703-714.

Zohar, D., & Luria, G. (2005). A multilevel model of safety climate: Gross-level relationships between organization and group-level climates. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90: 616-628.