We have been building teams for employer branding projects for the last 10 years. Make a point of bringing all kinds of employees from to buttom up to the top end together in these teams.

 

Our job, in reality, consists of listening to the employees. We listen to their hopes and expectations, to their delusions and celebrated successes. We hear all they have to tell us about things they could and could not do, what they had a chieved and were not appeciated for and so on.

 

We also organise focus group with participants chosen from among university students in order to have a better picture of tomorrow’s employees; and try to understand their wishes, anxieties and their expectations.

 

In this paper we wanted to bring together some themes that workers usually wish to tell the human resources but then refrain from doing so. It is not a statistic, but rather a short summary of the issues we particularly remembered. There is also no priority listing; and the aforementioned list does not pretend to the an all encompassing one.

 

Thease do not mention responsabilities !

 

We were quite taken by surprise at first but then we got rather used to hear this. It is a general opinion among the uni students, camdidates applying for jobs or new employees. How is a typical example in their words (and we quote)

 

I am quite a good student at the university. I think I will get a good job at the end of it After all I took all these classes. I will be good at work. But I can not visualize exactly what shall I do at the beginning, until

I learn my way around the ropes so to speak. There is so much theory at school, and frankly I have not clear ideas about which one to apply in a particular situation.

 

What’s even worse is that I am afraid I have already forgotten most of them, what with exams and everything. I do not think I will remember them when I will start working when companies come to introduce themselves at the campus they say, like, you will do this - you will do that. Please do not start everything by mentioning responsabilities, first! one wants one wants to say. Wait a little minute let us get a grip first. Then it will be us’ that shall come to you asking for more responsabilities, whent the time in a little more right….!

 

We have listened to the exact same request so from so many of them in many different wordings that it has almost become a classic. Engineering students hesitate to take charge, they say, because they are somewhat intimitated by the presence of the younger and more experienced technical school graduates who appear to be in full control of the work field. And then there are business students who have fears about not being an able budget; planner as a product manager or failing even to brief their manager in a correct way when they a occupy a post in the communications sector.

 

Everything seems years to be causing stress them and anxiety; handling international corrispondence visiting  27 clients even to speak but during a meeting…

 

If one thinks about it the solution is incredibly simple; it basically consist of defining a certain first period of incubation for the new employees ,and give them time to to find their feet and then help them take personability gradually

 

Most firms however, maybe, because of the workload or because of the “thats” how we learned attitude, shove their new employees under a mountain of responsibilities.