Employers Prioritise The ‘Soft Skills’ Of School Leavers

On the day when thousands of GSCE students receive their results, many of whom will now be looking for work, the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) has reiterated its call for Government and employers to work more closely together to improve the employability of school leavers.

The CIPD’s views are based on the latest CIPD/KPMG quarterly Labour Market Outlook, a survey of over 1,400 UK employers, which shows that employers are placing much more emphasis on the soft skills of school leavers such as communication skills and work ethic than on literacy and numeracy. It also shows that while a quarter of employers list literacy as one of the key attributes they are looking for when recruiting from the current crop of school leavers, and over a fifth list numeracy, the attributes that top the list are communication skills, work ethic – the basic desire to do a good job – and personality. The report also reveals that when asked to assess the performance of school leavers at work, a third of employers believe that girls outperform boys, which compares with just 3% who find that the reverse is true. Although, 52% of employers report no difference in the quality of male and female school leavers. Eileen Arney, Learning and Development Adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, comments,

“This year’s exam results have shown that today’s students are reaping the rewards from hard work at school. But those now entering the labour market need to recognise that this is not the end of the hard work. Today’s employers are seeking a wider range of skills that include communication, interpersonal skills and developing a work ethic. Students, schools and employers need to work together to ensure that school leavers are ready for work. And the students themselves need to be prepared to keep engaging in lifelong learning to keep their skills up to date and attractive to employers.

“Our findings suggest that the education system might help close the ‘employability gap’ by seeking to introduce more oral-based tests and more work experience schemes. Such changes may benefit boys in particular who are seen as having weaker communication skills – which may explain why employers are more likely to rate girls more highly than boys at work after leaving school.

“School leavers themselves also need to take note that they are entering a competitive labour market. With a ready supply of willing and able workers throughout the EU, more people continuing or returning to work beyond the traditional retirement age, and government efforts to encourage long-term incapacity benefit claimants to return to work, school leavers who don’t demonstrate a desire to work and the basic communication skills to thrive in the modern workplace, risk finding it hard to secure work.” (CD)