Young employees show enthusiasm towards their first job, they adhere to company policies and are more sincere at the workplace, this is why young employees get hired.
More flexible to work for extra hours. Also, they come up with the most innovative initiatives that would help the organization grow.
They also try to develop the traditional standards with their updated knowledge which is a good sign for any organization, but on the darker side due to lack of experience, many youngsters get fired for the damage that occurred to the organization because of their small mistake.
 Young Employees in the Workplace:
An organization should hire employees of different types. Here the term different relates to employees hired unbiased, comprising age diversity, gender diversity etc. When a diversified group of people comes together at a workplace, the chances to succeed for an employer is higher.
It is a well-known truth that each type of workers has their own style of working. The reason for it could be the working way they have learned and experienced or the type of work they are well versed within doing.
Most of the types of workers in the workplace are a mixture of the below-mentioned people,
- Baby boomers – People born between 1946- 1964
- Gen’xers – Â People born between 1965-1979
- Millennials – People born after 1980
Now is the time where the present generation of employees comes under your management and working with them would be a little different, unlike the earlier times. There occurred a lot of changes in the working procedure and the employees nowadays.
Let’s view some of the pervasive myths about the youngest generation in the workforce that most people have.
Myth: Lack of work ethics is found in the younger generation
Truth: They are possessed with a self-centered focused work ethic
Myth: Have no interest to move ahead by just extra time
Truth: Ready to invest time for doing the work but not interested in facetime
Myth: They do not have any respect for authority.
Truth: They do respect authority and loyalty but only when it is earned
Myth: They don’t find the need to grow up.
Truth: They actually want to, but have no idea how, as their ideas and vision are different when compared to previous-gen employees.
Though there is definitely a change in employees, not all changes are bad. Also even as their attitude towards work, life, loyalty, and respect are different, they still hold their own importance and value.
So here are a few advantages and disadvantages to hiring young employees.
Pros and Cons of Hiring Young Employees:
| Advantages of Hiring Young Employees | Disadvantages of Hiring Young Employees |
| Passionate to work | Lack of Stability |
| Optimists | Lack of skills |
| High Productivity | Discipline Issues |
| Easy to manage | Failure of handling pressure |
| Generates New initiatives | Frustration |
| Versatility | Irresponsible |
| Recreates the workplace environment | They find difficult to accept feedback |
| The cost to the company is low | Much Depended on technology |
| They adapt easily | Lack of Supremacy |
Advantages of Hiring Young Employees in the Workplace:
1. Passionate to work:
Young employees are much active and vigorous to work when compared to experienced employees.
Since it is the first job, their eagerness and enthusiasm will help the employers to expect much dedication and performance.
They enjoy the workplace since they are passionate. As they are hungry to learn something new, it will help the organization to provide the best training so that they can apply it in their duties.
Younger Employees analyze their roles and responsibilities to the deep roots and understand the company standards.
2. Optimists:
The young generation develops a positive attitude towards work. They build healthy relations with the team to understand his/her first nature of the job.
With proper training, a trainee can turn into any professional as per organization requirement. With an open mind, they will accept the roles and responsibilities because they do not have the experience to urge for a particular role.
They are bound to each policy that is designed by the organization. All they would require is proper onboarding.
They wanted to develop their career, so learning about the job role will be interesting for them.
3. High Productivity:
Young employees try to excel in their role and will try to impress with their initial results.
This will help the productivity of the organization, the enthusiasm will create to give the best from them.
They would also start competing with the other senior employees in order to build their career, they get paid off for their excellence hence the major advantage of hiring young employees is productivity.
They try to set tiny goals for themselves to get equally recognized by other employees. They try to intake more details of their duties in order to avoid errors.
Organization need not worry about the time invested in their training because they would help for long-term organization goals
4. Easy to manage:
It is easy to manage young employees because their attitude towards the job is more sincere when compared to seniors.
They would be ready to stretch hands to contribute their help at times when an organization needs extra working hours. Their expectations are low.
They can work with multi-tasks because they understand the necessity of the job these days. They are more flexible to timings and benefits.
They strictly follow the guidelines of their trainers or mentors, so it is not a tough job to get along with them.
5. Generates New initiatives:
Young employees have fresh knowledge of their curriculum, they are more updated with the technologies and strategies.
So they can lay a foundation for new innovation which will reflect the future growth of the organization.
They think in a smart way and come up with different thoughts in a different perspective, which is very much required for a business to grow and to change the traditional method of business.
They would require to hire young employees in order to grow vertically and to compete with other organizations it is not enough to just sustain but should be able to set a unique way of making business.
6. Versatility:
One cannot grow with the same old way of techniques, there should be a change in the process. Smart and updated new generation employees are much needed for those companies which ruled the world in past but failed to do it in current years.
An idea can change the world. They come up with cost-effective ideas and smarter way of performing a task which will not only save time but will also help to focus on the key elements of the business.
They may lack experience but not lack of knowledge. Those who participated in initiatives will be helpful for future projects, why because they are aware of the hurdles involved in it.
7. Recreates the workplace environment:
New generation expects their work environment to be refreshing and inspiring. They will help to recreate the work culture.
This will not only inspire them to work but also excites others to work with them. Healthy work culture will directly affect the organization growth.
A boring workplace may not encourage the employees to perform their duties efficiently, so it is necessary to have employees of the young generation to work with fun and deliver results. Also, they are not influenced by politics around them, their focus and goals will be very clear.
Hence they can perform efficiently. They also contribute best to help their mentors or trainers which will build the best workforce environment.
8. The cost to the company is low:
Unlike the experienced candidates, the hiring managers need not worry about the payroll expectation of young employees.
Due to the recession, many of them are in trouble to find the job these days, so no one will afford to lose a platform which will help in their career.
So compared to experience candidates the employers can invest low budget for these employees, though a load of training cost will be more productivity will refund this initial cost to the company.
Few companies enforce a security deposit, in the event the employee does not complete the prohibition period, the total training cost will be recovered from that amount.
9. They adapt easily:
Last but not least, they can learn things easily, they can adopt the nature of job within no time since it is not much time they have left their colleges and studies. The enthusiasm to learn and adapt is much higher when compared to experienced.
So when a company wanted to start something new, these young employees will best fit to start up. More than anything they are more healthy than older employers in the organization.
They have more energy to work for long hours irrespective of any working conditions. Hence the employers prefer young employees in the workplace.
Disadvantages of Hiring Young Employees in the Workplace:
1. Lack of Stability:
Many of the young employees have no clear vision of their careers. They join a company and once they find any other good opportunity they will switch to other companies, this will be a huge loss to the organization.
Since the effort and time invested in providing benefits and training will be a huge loss for the employers, instead they can hire a good number of experienced candidates and provide them benefits and they will sustain for the longer period.
This is the major disadvantage of hiring young employees.
2. Lack of skills:
For some specific roles, they needed an experienced candidate so that they can handle the task in a professional manner.
Due to lack of knowledge, there is a high possibility to cause damage to the assets, which incur the cost to the company, to avoid such issues employers do not prefer young employees.
Many skilled persons are aware of the company assets and to deal with the environment.
It is not possible to extend training to those who lack behind in understanding the concepts, because of its merely a waste of time for the organization. Instead, they would prefer older and experienced people.
3. Discipline Issues:
Not all, but most of them are unaware of the work culture environment. They do not turn up on time, they do not strictly follow the HR rules.
Many of them try to take leaves more than they are provided with, which is a question of discipline. They also damage the workforce environment due to lack of maturity about work culture.
The employers expect every individual to follow the same policies. They may damage the diversity that is existing in the company. This will prevail bad influence on others and will pave way for new issues in the company. Hence this is also one of the disadvantages.
4. Failure of handling pressure:
At times company would expect the response to handle heavy projects to be completed in a specific period of time, they give up the job or discontinue.
There are many reasons why they cannot handle pressure, it may be a lack of training or due to lack of a smart way to complete the task or lack of a corporate way of working.
The managers will be wholly depended on these employees with a strong belief that they would complete the task.
They would expect because they are getting paid, so obviously, they put pressure on employees to meet the targets assigned to them.
5. Frustration:
Experienced candidates know how to handle situations and how to handle management. But when coming to young employees, they may lose patience and get frustrated when something went wrong.
In critical times, older employees would manage it perfectly because of their experience in a particular field. These young guys would either show it at work or on the manager or co-workers which is the bad way of managing.
The older employers are aware of professional behaviour at the workplace. This is why they choose older employees upon youngsters.
6. Irresponsible:
They do not have much awareness of the business. It will take them years to understand the big picture of how it works, so lack of practical knowledge they may not get along with the job. Which is called irresponsible in terms of workforce.
Every situation is new to them, they may have bookish knowledge but when coming to practical it needs experience.
So the burden automatically increases, since they have no idea of what consequences occur in the organization, they extend the time limit of the assigned task.
In that case, if we look into the broad picture, the nonbillable hours increase for the company. It impacts the financial aspects.
7. They find difficult to accept feedback:
Since its a new place for a candidate, there will be a heap of instructions and guidelines for them, also they may receive positive and negative feedback at regular basis until they excel in the role.
Most of them receive negative feedback, they find it difficult to accept it, they feel it as they have been warned.
But actually it will improve their performance, this is also one of the cons of hiring them.
8. Much Depended on technology:
These days they are more prone to technology, they would expect results in a smart way, that is something to be appreciated, but they do not have an idea to find an alternative solution in case of some critical issues and they fail to work.
If the youngsters are in trouble, they should fetch the experienced employees for manual or alternatives to complete the case for time being.
This nature will come along with experience hence the employers do not take the risk to hire young employees.
9. Lack of Supremacy:
It is a tough time for young bosses to manage experienced peers. It is a difficult job to handle older employees who carry a lot of wisdom and knowledge.
It is sensitive, that is why the organization do not prefer to rule the experienced candidates.
It is the question of loyalty, management cannot take action against the experienced employees because of the immaturity of a young boss. The discrepancy increases and it will rise to new politics in a company.
Conclusion:
Management expects the business results but not political dramas at the workplace. They both have an equal attitude the former employers expect respect because of their long service and the young blood also expect the same for his great efforts achieved in less time.
To wrap up the organization prefer loyal, focused and talented employees. So based on the scope they can be provided equal opportunities to show their performance.
