Not long ago, I had a conversation with the owner of a small industrial distribution company. He complained about the lack of awareness that a couple of his young warehouse employees display.
“It just doesn’t seem to occur to them to look around for stuff to do when things are slow,” he said. “When the heat’s on, they hustle like the rest of us, but I’ll walk into the warehouse after the rush and they’re just sitting there while my two older guys are cleaning up the mess left over. How do I find out which young people have self-initiative before I hire them?”
When you think about it, situational awareness comes down to using a mix of skills, experience, context, and sometimes a little bit of courage to take the initiative necessary in a given moment. While I could understand this gentleman’s frustration, I wondered about how much he was investing in both selection and supervision of those he hires.
It is easy for those of us who have been around for a while to assume that we had the situational awareness we possess today decades ago when we were first entering the workforce. If we could go back and ask those who supervised us at that point, we probably find out how mistaken we are. This means we need to reflect on the actual effort we put into selecting, orienting and supervising those in the emerging generation.
The biggest difference between then and now is the number of distractions in the surroundings. Today’s young people are immersed in such a multi-channel environment that it is understandable that they would naturally seek out the most stimulating thing to do. Given a choice between texting their friends and picking up a broom, for instance, we know which one is going to win.
Thirty years ago, there just weren’t the same distractions. If you got bored in the workplace, you began to look around for things to do just to keep occupied. This usually meant work, even if someone wasn’t hounding you.
Of course, this ultra-distracting environment makes Millennial behavior understandable, not acceptable. In today’s workplace, young workers require more specific instruction simply to ensure that they embrace the priorities of what needs to be done. While this is not true of all of them, it is best to begin with this assumption until they demonstrate that they possess the situational awareness to work with less direct supervision. So here’s what I suggested to this owner:
For selection, it is important to place applicants in at least a couple of situations where they have the opportunity to demonstrate their sense of situational awareness. In a warehouse, for instance, you might ask them to help organize a pile of parts or products.
Teach them how to do so and do it with them for a while as you ask some interview questions. Find a reason, though, to walk away mid-way through this task and make sure you’re gone for at least five to seven minutes. When you return, see if they continued with the task or stopped and waited for you. While you may still choose to hire them, you will know that they will require some training up front about taking initiative and looking around for what can be done.
In the next post, I’ll address coaching for situational awareness with those already on the job.