Smart Work Ethics

When folks first arrive at one of our classes they usually stop and look at the classroom. The reluctant student is enticed because our classroom doesn’t look like a typical classroom. Students are seated at tables, not at desks in rows, and the tables have colorful and touchable decorations. We appeal to all of the senses. We want to make a great first impression with our students. It is much easier to take the time to make a good impression than it is to recover from a bad one.
• The room is visually stimulating (provided in your Facilitator Kit)
• Students are encouraged to explore kinesthetic learning
• Discussions, stories, open ended questions are all provided in the Facilitator Kit
• Total student involvement creates the change

There is a reason for everything we do in our classes. We want to appeal to the person who didn’t like school, who may have felt like a failure in school and who never ever wants to be in a classroom again. Instead of expecting them to adapt to us we are incorporating their learning style into the sessions.

Students discover that the room enhancements are not arbitrary - the specific colors we use match Smart Colors and reinforce the four colors we use to identify the different personality types. Motivational signs reinforce the messages we want our students to take away with them.
We treat our students with respect. We want to hear their ideas and their input. We ask open ended questions. For example, we engage students so they can personalize the concepts.  Relevancy is important.

Students learn delayed gratification by saving Smart Work Ethics Dollars for real world rewards - such as a gas card. Our reinforcement program is designed to keep the class stimulating for all students and to help reach out to students who might be feeling insecure or who lack confidence. We don’t let students hide in the back of the room - we have ways to reach out to them and to draw them into the class.

We don’t give tests. We feel that the best measurement of our success is our students’ success in the workplace.

You may be thinking that we are going to a lot of trouble to reach these kids and you are right. Our students are usually less advantaged youth and we believe that the extra effort we are making is more than worth it if we can help these youth have better lives. Although our classes are motivational, our main goal is to help our students understand what businesses expect. We give them practical information and strategies to implement new behaviors.
A small training effort can have a big life impact for your students.

Everywhere we go people are complaining about the lack of work ethics. We hear all kinds of stories. Employees don’t show up on time, they aren’t dressed appropriately and sometimes they don’t even show up at all. One employee called in to tell his boss he was going to be late for work because there was a line at Starbucks. At least he called in.

So, what has happened to the old saying: an honest days work for an honest days pay? These skills are the hidden rules of success. America was built on this foundation and yet it seems to be slipping away. We are loosing many of our cherished values and ideals.

No one is teaching work ethics. You hear a lot about soft skills, but what we really need is work ethics. Parents aren’t teaching their children. Maybe they are too busy or perhaps they didn’t learn these skills when they were growing up. Schools aren’t teaching work ethics. The schools are too busy making sure no child is left behind. But what happens to these young people when they get into the job market? If they don’t have the skills to keep a job they often end up in the revolving door of entry level jobs. This is not the future we want for our youth.

Some of you who are reading this blog have a great work ethic and your children are learning your values by modeling your actions and hearing you talk about what is important. You may be struggling to understand the depth of this problem.

For a moment put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Imagine that you are a single parent and you love your children very much. You are struggling to create a good life for them. Unfortunately you never learned the skills to keep a job. Your parents did not teach you a strong work ethic. You can get a job, but you either quit because you can’t get along with your boss or you get fired for reasons you don’t understand. Since you can’t get ahead you are forced to live in a high crime neighborhood. You worry every day about your children. You want them to have a better life, but you don’t know how to make that happen. Your children are growing up without a model for success. This cycle will continue unless we do something to break it.

We can’t keep waiting for someone else to break this cycle. The time for change is now.

If you have a great work ethic, you may think that coming to work every day, showing up on time and doing a good job is so obvious that anyone can figure it out. But for some reason they don’t. Expecting people to figure it out on their own is a lot like teaching a kid to learn to swim by pushing him off the end of the pier. A few kids learn to swim. Others figure out that they don’t like being pushed off the end of the pier and learn to hate swimming. There has got to be a better way.

So, why can’t they figure it out? There is a gap between school and work. The culture of school does not prepare our youth for the culture of work. For example if you miss a day of school nothing much happens. School goes on without you. The teachers still give tests and teach their classes. When you go back to school you take a note from your mother. In the work place if you miss a day co-workers have to take up the slack and this may not be obvious to new workers. And if you don’t call in you may be fired.

Linda (not her real name but her true story) told us: “Honey, I can get a job. I just can’t keep a job.”  We explored a bit more and Linda told us that she kept getting fired because her boss always said she missed too much work. She told us: “I usually go in four days a week - too many other things come up.” We asked her: “What happens when other people miss work?” She told us: “I really hate it; it makes more work for the rest of us.”  We then asked: “Have you ever thought about what happens to your boss and your co-workers when you miss work?” Linda had never thought about how her behavior was affecting the entire work place. Linda’s problem may seem pretty obvious to you, but Linda had never considered her impact on others. We don’t know how this story ends. We are hoping Linda keeps that next job.

Today our young people are bombarded with so much information. How do they figure out which information is important? When a young person starts a new job there is so much to learn. She needs to learn the job as well as the culture of the company. If she doesn’t already have a work ethic, she is likely to pick her work ethic from fellow employees. So if our young people are learning work values from TV or music or the internet or slackers on the job how can we expect them to choose the best values?

Unless the concept of work ethic becomes relevant and meaningful to our youth, we don’t think they can just figure it out. See our blog post: Telling is NOT Training.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could tell people what you wanted them to do and they would just do it? How many times have you been frustrated because you told an employee (or your kid) what you needed them to do and they didn’t do it?

Giving information is different from teaching a new skill or a new behavior. An example of teaching a new skill or behavior is teaching a student time management so she can get to work or school on time or for a kid a new behavior could be learning to clean his room every week. An example of giving information is telling a new employee where the break room is located.

When you are asking a new employee or a student to learn a new behavior we have found that telling is not effective. You can’t just tell them and expect results. We have talked to so many human resource professionals and bosses who tell us: “We spend an hour (and sometimes only 5 minutes!) telling our new employees exactly what we expect of them. We give them an Employee Handbook. They don’t listen. What can we do?”

Remember back to the first time you told your child to clean his room? When you came back to check his progress you may have found that he moved a few toys around, but the room definitely did not match your idea of clean. Your child was not being difficult; he did not understand how to clean his room or what you expected of him. “Clean your room” was not a meaningful instruction.

So, you realized that you had to take it one step at a time - over several days or weeks. First you explained that he needed to put away all the toys. The first time through you needed to put the toys away together - so he would know where to put each toy. You probably found it helpful to explain why he needed to put the toys away: “Put your toys away so they don’t get stepped on and broken. You will be able to find your toys when you want to play with them.” Next you told him about putting away the shoes, then putting all the dirty clothes in the basket and hanging up the clean clothes. Finally you showed him how to make his bed. To help your child stay motivated you used a reward plan - a gold star for each task. Your child’s room was clean, he understood some reasons for each behavior and what it means to have a clean room. Your child learned a new set of behaviors.

When you grow this idea up to adults or young adults training you still need to have a list of the topics you want to cover, ways to make the material relevant to your students, ways to engage the interest of your students, examples of the new behaviors and exercises so your students can practice the new behaviors. When you make a behavior relevant to a employee or student you are helping him understand: “what’s in it for me.”

Learning work ethics is a lot like learning to clean your room. If a student has not been exposed to a strong work ethic in her home then she just doesn’t know what is expected in the work place. Perhaps she learned a different set of values and behaviors growing up. Mom and Dad were caught in the revolving door of entry level jobs and they were just barely able to keep the family afloat. When teaching a new behavior like work ethics the training process must also overcome bad habits learned in the past. You may need to overcome many years of bad habits.

You may be feeling discouraged about our young adults entering the work force. You may be asking: “Where can we get quality workers?” Those bad habits were learned and our youth can learn new habits. It is easier than you think. Focus on the end goal; make the training interesting, engaging and relevant; reinforce (reward) desired behaviors and provide ways for your students to practice the new behaviors.