One of the big shocks for many leaving education and trying to get into work is the sudden lack of structure, so being able to prioritise your own work is seen by many employers as essential.
In Leeds, Christian Townsley, the co-founder of the North Bar group, says working in a busy bar is all about staying calm and keeping a “cool head”.
“It’s important that you can organise, you can multitask, you can identify who’s next at the bar and remember that,” he says.
Townsley offers trial shifts as part of the recruitment process, to give job seekers an opportunity to showcase these skills in action.
“We’ll observe them working with customers, working with the team, seeing how they fit in, seeing how they communicate,” he says.
As people get promoted, they are expected to take on more responsibilities and be able to manage them within the role.
“There’s organisation, ordering beer, pricing beer, planning social media, marketing, recruiting,” Townsley adds.
Jude Hillary, the economist who led the project for NFER, says these human skills are what will allow people to get into and keep work at a higher skill level, even while automation bites.
“This is where the job growth is going to be in the labour market,” he says. “It’s really important young people come into the labour market being able to compete for these jobs.”
And he believes focusing on these six essential employment skills will help young people adapt in a time of huge change.
“It’s increasingly likely that during the course of your working life, you might have to make some fairly dramatic changes in what you’re doing as your job gets replaced by technology.”
An independent review led by Alan Milburn, a former health secretary, has been looking at the scale of young people not working, learning or training.
The interim report said 42% of employers listed a lack of soft skills or work readiness as a challenge when hiring young people. Only 10% cited the resilience of young people which was the next biggest concern.
There is increasing pressure for schools, colleges and universities to focus on giving young people what they need to be work-ready alongside academic learning.
Already, Prime Minister Andy Burnham has signalled that more teenagers should start technical education at 14 and has supported a work experience scheme for 10,000 young people announced this week by the retail chain Sainsbury’s.
In September, the final report of the Milburn review is expected to set out its proposals on how to get more young adults into secure work.
Additional reporting by Hannah Karpel.
