Recently, I’ve heard a fair amount of carping about the job skills and work ethic (or lack thereof) of America’s next working generation. Despite what appears to be better than average collaboration skills, complaints center on their outsized expectations, easily bruised feelings, and a complete lack of work experience.

For some perspective on the issue, I turned to someone who is not only knowledgeable on the subject, but is putting his time and money where his mouth is and trying to improve the situation. Matt Smith is President of The A Game, a school-to-work transition education firm. Their raison d’etre is to prepare (and certify) young people for what in many cases is their first real job. I invited Matt to comment on the subject, and his new business…

by Matt Smith

“Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice, and need.”
-Voltaire

Today, reading Voltaire is viewed as a bit old-fashioned. But then again, his view of work is getting to be old-fashioned, too. Where we once embraced work as the way people earned their place in society and admired those who climbed to the top, we’ve lately come to accept a world view in which those who manage to avoid work are the ones deserving of our admiration. Whether it’s reality TV, get-rich-quick schemes, or the lottery, we see more evidence of this shift of attitudes every day.

And nowhere has this been more obvious than in our young employees – those aged between 15 and 24. Their age group has come to be known for inconsistent performance, bad attitudes, and spotty attendance. And while there are exceptions to the rule, the simple truth is that most young people lack the work ethic that built the infrastructure they now reject.

And that begs the question, where do young people learn work ethic?  From parents, at school, in the backroom of your business?  Until now, the answer has been a resounding no.

There are literally thousands of skills needed to succeed in any given workplace, but only a few fundamental values that underlie those. And they are the same in any workplace – from that first paper route to working in the C-Suite. Values like attitude, attendance, appearance, ambition, acceptance, accountability, and appreciation. These are the foundation of The A Game, and they are what we teach young employees.

We’ve developed a number of different solutions to instill these values in young employees – because you don’t tell someone how to have values – you grow them through experience. By reaching out to classroom educators and top corporate trainers we have built systems to train in any environment, with the ultimate goal for young employees being that they earn their A Game Certification – proof that they possess the values needed to thrive in the workplace.

When young people thrive in the workplace, they are much more likely to grow into contented cows. But to get there, it’s incumbent upon us to start teaching Voltaire’s lesson about work again – even if we don’t plan on ever reading Candide.

Matt Smith (matt@theagame.com) is the President of The A Game, the national workplace initiative aimed at rebuilding the work ethic of America, one teen at a time. To learn more about the A Game, visit http://www.theagame.com or follow @TheAGame on Twitter.