Entitled young workers are a risk to productivity

New research has revealed trouble in the engine room of our economy, with family business owners saying productivity is a big problem, and attitudes of younger staff are to blame.

Family business researcher Ross Cameron says the majority of employing business owners say productivity is a problem in their business. Picture: iStock

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What is happening to the emerging generation of young employees?

Collectively the nation’s biggest employers, Australian family business owners believe that, unlike previous generations, too many of our young people have an “entitlement mentality”, and it’s devastating productivity.

Family business researcher Ross Cameron says the majority of employing business owners say productivity is definitely a problem in their business. And they blame the attitudes of their young staff.

Many see the implementation of technology, including artificial intelligence, as the way to reverse the culture and lift productivity.

My guess is, very few young employees understand that their employer is unhappy. Nor do they realise what is about to happen to them.

When Jim Chalmers calls together industry bodies to discuss productivity in August, almost certainly missing from the ranks will be enterprises from Australia’s business engine room – family enterprises.

Jim Chalmers should include family businesses in productivity forums. Picture: David Clark

To fill the gap, Cameron has just finished a wave of productivity research among small and medium enterprises around the country, asking them about productivity and what they are doing about it.

He concludes that the overwhelming productivity focus of SMEs is on staffing. They find it difficult to employ people in Australia and, regrettably, increasingly difficult to motivate staff.

And when things don’t work out, it creates even greater problems. They have arrived at a solution – embrace technology.

It’s summed up by one business owner who said: “We’ve been investing in improving for a long time. I’ve taken $1.5m in costs out of the business without impacting on revenue, mostly through AI, robotics and offshoring. I hate to say it, because I’m very pro-Australian, but it is very hard to make the case to employ in Australia.”

Before looking at some of the reasons for the change in young employee attitudes, here are some of the comments from family business owners which highlight the problem.

• “The desire to work hard has gone … it’s hard to find people that want to work full-time … after Covid-19, everyone seems to have slowed down … it’s like pulling teeth to get them to do the job they’re employed to do … they just don’t seem to have a sense of urgency to get stuff done.”

• “We have some really great staff members who work hard, but there are also some who, for example, will roster themselves off because it’s their birthday or even their boyfriend’s birthday. If I ever did that when I was 23 I wouldn’t have had a job! It’s just this sense of entitlement that they have. You’ve got to manage it, but it’s hard.”

• “What would improve our productivity would be a complete overhaul of the award system. The award system puts a stupid amount of restrictions on what our staff can do in terms of their work hours.”

• “The days of giving people feedback can now be considered as bullying. There’s a lot of stuff you can’t say and do, and as a result things don’t get corrected, so it’s a very delicate position we’re in.”

• “I used to have a rule of thumb that you’d have 80 per cent of people out there actually working – like producing the business’s income – and 20 per cent at ‘head office’ managing it or secretarial or whatever … But I’m starting to think that with AI it will change, it will be more like 90/10 per cent.”

The community has invested substantial sums in trade education. Picture: iStock

Cameron does not offer reasons for the changing attitudes. One of the employers quoted above blames the education system for not preparing young people for work. There has certainly been an increase in non-work related cultural subjects and less emphasis on “success” achievers.

While that might be a contributing factor, the community has invested substantial sums in trade education.

I suspect a deeper reason is that clearly marked out career paths are much harder to find, and the advent of AI is going to make that worse.

Politicians at all three levels, plus the banking rules, have deliberately made it difficult for young people to buy a dwelling and raise a family. Instead of looking after our next generation, we have been enriching existing homeowners.

And there is the threat of climate change, which adds to a sense of living for the present rather than the future.

The abundance of jobs, particularly government-related jobs, reduces loyalty to a particular employer.

The industrial relations legislation has emphasised the rights of employees, rather than linking the success of the business with the rewards of the employees. That creates a vicious circle.

We have ahead of us a generation that is totally unprepared for what is going to happen to them in the new era of AI. It could be a brutal awakening.

Originally published as Entitled young workers are a risk to productivity