Behavioral Skills in the Workplace:
What Do Young People Need to Succeed?

A Forum — November 30, 1994

Major interest in helping young people prepare for productive lives has focused on improving academic performance in traditional subject areas. Yet, research increasingly suggests that personality characteristics and behavioral skills are among the most important factors predicting success in the labor market and in other areas of adult life.

While public policy has acknowledged the importance of developing factors like individual character, that attention has been cursory. Understanding the critical role that work attitudes and behavioral skills play in success has become more urgent as national standards for education and job skills are developed.

Peter Cappelli of the National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workforce (EQW): In the 1970s, we were engaged in a debate similar to today's about how best to foster success in the workplace. We perceived a productivity problem then, and traced it not to education, but to morale and the design of work. In numerous surveys and studies, when you ask employers and managers directly, "What important problems do you see in your workforce?," they cite the workforce attitudes of new hires. Academic and vocational skills are far down their response list.

In assessing the importance of attitudes and behavioral skills in the workplace, Cappelli said we must ask ourselves, "How good would a candidate's technical skills have to be in order to offset bad morale, low motivation, inability to get along with others, low perseverance, poor attention to detail?" Even with superior technical skills, such poor attitudes would require an employer to compensate in supervision, monitoring and training. "High-performance workplaces" mean more autonomy, more self-motivation. Thus, employers attempting to create such workplaces must rely more on good workforce attitudes.

Cappelli defined work attitudes broadly as "how one tends to respond in work settings;" responding to challenges, and one's motivation in doing so, was the most important of those attitudes. The manifestations of motivation are a need for achievement, initiative, persistence. Several cognitive factors that shape motivation: goal-setting, the expectations of your superiors, role models, self-esteem. He also talked about expectations in terms of a locus of control -- Do you believe that outcomes are within your control or do you exhibit "learned helplessness," a sense that outcomes are beyond your control.

The National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workforce, in its research on empowerment and self-esteem, has looked at several studies on issues of motivation in the workplace. One study concluded that there are two kinds of students: those who believe that achievement is a result of effort and others who believe achievement is the result of ability.

In analyzing overall labor market performance, EQW uses a national longitudinal survey of the high school class of 1972 -- looking at their attitudes toward work in 1972 and relating those to their job performance in 1986. Some of the findings: Men who report a high level of internal control (who feel strongly that outcomes are within their control)  or "empowerment" earn 11% more than those with only an average level of internal control. Women with a low level of empowerment relative to the average earn about 10% less than the average, but those with a high level of empowerment don't earn significantly more than the average.

Cappelli touched on other related work attitudes like conscientiousness, "organizational citizenship" ("what's happening when no one else is looking") and behavioral skills like communications and teamwork. An attitude of compliance does not predict very well an individual's job success, Cappelli said, yet some think that compliance is what employers want.

How to develop these attitudes, particularly in the classroom? It is much easier to do when people are younger. Pedagogy, not content, is crucial. In other words, don't offer a class on motivation, but organize the academic material in such a way that students are more motivated. It is key to reward students for effort. This conflicts with the emphasis on academic standards, which don't allow for rewarding effort, but the attitude that success comes from effort, rather than from ability alone, is one that we should foster if we want a motivated workforce.

Thomas Kline of Pfizer, Inc. runs what he calls a "high-quality, high-skill operation in a troubled community" in Brooklyn, New York. Eighty percent of the 750 workers in the Brooklyn plant are from New York City. "Those of us in manufacturing, who hire lots of unskilled workers, tend to blame the workforce or society or those who don't look or act like us for the problems we have with our workforce. But after 13 years of managing Pfizer's largest manufacturing plant in Brooklyn, I know that these are failures of management."

"First and foremost, I want a motivated workforce," Kline said. Workers need to be able to think and do basic arithmetic calculations. Speaking English well is not the most important skill. In order to understand motivation, we need to understand diversity. Kline discussed stereotypes, ranging from perceptions of the "Old Boy Network" to judgements about former convicts. "I can't afford to judge anybody. It's our job to accommodate the diversity of the workforce."

Kline spoke of former convicts and former drug addicts that he has hired who have proven to be some of the plant's most motivated -- and motivational -- workers. He assumes that if a former drug addict really has kicked his habit, he must be a very motivated individual. "I look for someone I can motivate. I'm prepared to write off their entire background if I catch that feeling of motivation when I talk to them."

Once we acknowledge what Kline called the "typically shared values" of all cultures -- pride, love of family, religion, material goals, dreams, wanting to belong, loyalty to some group or ideals -- we develop respect for other people's cultures and that respect is the key to motivating "the so-called `unemployable'."
 
Pfizer has "virtually no turnover." Some of this may be due to the fact that unemployment in the area is 15% -- offering a large labor pool. But the company is "unique in its dedication to the community," establishing the city's first bilingual public grammar school at the plant, as well as "paying good wages and treating people with respect," Kline said. Pfizer pays employees for all time spent training.

Suzanne Stutman of the Institute for Mental Health Initiatives addressed the issue of how best to develop the work attitudes and skills described by Cappelli and Kline. She discussed the research on resilience, particularly in children, and what qualities enable some children who would seem to be destined for lives of emotional trouble to overcome the odds. The antecedents of resilience -- self-esteem, a sense of internal control and problem-solving skills -- are also part of the research literature on resilience.

How to teach or foster resilience and its attendant skills? Resilience is often taught through controlled exposure to adversity. Programs like Outward Bound or the Boy Scouts offer this exposure. Skills such as problem-solving should be taught developmentally -- that is, the pedagogical approaches should vary depending on the age of the student. In teaching problem-solving skills, for example, one could begin with a young child by encouraging the child to generate options, saying "What else could you do?" when a child brings up a dilemma or frustration. This encourages a crucial sense of autonomy.

According to Stutman, the other important "senses" to develop in young children are 1) a sense of worth; 2) a sense of power ("I can change things.") 3) a sense of competence ("I am good at...") and 4) a sense of hope, an optimistic outlook. These attributes are not just a matter of personality or disposition, Stutman said; research has shown that they can be taught in the classroom.

An example of classroom teaching that contributes to the development of such skills might be an Afrocentric curriculum in a school with a large African-American population. The curriculum content is significant, but perhaps even more important is the self-esteem that results from learning about one's history and culture: That self-esteem then becomes the foundation for further development.

After a question and answer period, Peter Cappelli concluded by saying that research suggests that the "hard core unemployed" -- older, low-skill workers -- are the hardest to motivate.  "If we start earlier, it's much cheaper," he said.

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