The Forgotten Transition: When Young People Leave School and Enter the Workplace

We spend years preparing young people for exams.

We spend very little time preparing them for work.

Every year, thousands of young people leave school, college or university and step into workplaces for the first time. Some arrive confident. Some arrive nervous. Some have supportive families behind them. Others don’t.

Their backgrounds are different.

Their life experiences are different.

Their confidence levels are different.

Yet many employers and colleagues expect them all to arrive with the same level of understanding.

The truth is they don’t.

An eighteen-year-old may legally be an adult, but that doesn’t mean they automatically understand workplace culture, professional expectations, office politics or how to navigate difficult personalities.

Many young people are entering an environment they have never experienced before.

They don’t know what is expected.

They don’t know what is acceptable.

They don’t know which questions are sensible to ask and which might be viewed as obvious by more experienced staff.

What seems like common sense to a worker with twenty years’ experience is often completely new territory for someone on their first day.

Every workplace is different.

In one company using a mobile phone may be encouraged because it forms part of the role.

In another it may be frowned upon.

One employer may encourage discussion and learning.

Another may expect people to simply “get on with it”.

Young people cannot be expected to know these differences unless somebody takes the time to teach them.

Unfortunately, this is where problems often begin.

The experienced employee asked to train the newcomer may already be under pressure.

Management may assume the trainee should know more than they do.

Frustration builds.

The trainee senses the frustration but doesn’t understand why.

Questions stop being asked.

Confidence begins to fall.

Mistakes increase.

Relationships become strained.

Sometimes this develops into something more concerning.

The young worker becomes isolated.

They are left out of conversations.

Their mistakes are discussed more than their successes.

They become the subject of workplace jokes.

Tasks are deliberately withheld from them and then they are criticised for not knowing how to do them.

Information is selectively shared.

Opportunities are quietly removed.

Their confidence slowly disappears.

Many people would describe this as workplace bullying.

Increasingly, we should also recognise elements of coercive and controlling behaviour.

Not every case is intentional.

Not every workplace is toxic.

Yet patterns of exclusion, manipulation, humiliation and isolation can have a significant impact on a young person’s mental wellbeing.

This is particularly common in industries where toughness is seen as a badge of honour.

Construction, trades, manual labour and some male-dominated environments can be fantastic places to build skills and lifelong friendships.

They can also be environments where some young workers are tested, manipulated or ridiculed under the banner of “that’s how we learned.”

The problem is that humiliation is not training.

Fear is not mentoring.

Isolation is not development.

Good employers understand this.

They invest time.

They provide support.

They explain expectations clearly.

They recognise that confidence grows through encouragement, experience and opportunity.

The responsibility for learning does not sit solely with the young person.

It also sits with those teaching them.

If we want resilient workers, we must first create environments where people are allowed to learn.

If we want confident adults, we must first recognise that nobody arrives in the workplace knowing everything.

Every experienced worker was once the young person asking questions.

Every skilled professional was once the trainee making mistakes.

Perhaps it’s time we remembered that.