Work is an inevitable part of adult life and learning work-ready skills is the primary way to prepare for employment. We all know this as parents.  But some teens today live in a fantasy world where they believe they will become a famous influencer or tiktoker allowing them to never have to work a day in their lives.  While we know very, very few people succeed at becoming a famous influencer or tiktoker, it is hard for our teens to understand this fact.  And then there are other teens who are just living their teen years with no care in the world and no desire to think about employment.  Either scenario makes our teens ill-prepared for employment. 

Schools today put so much emphasis on academics, testing, and teaching only to prepare teens for college, that we have lost sight of preparing our teens for employment.  Instead of teaching our teens work-ready or soft-skills that are necessary for any type of employment, we spend all our time pushing them to better their grades, take the right classes, and do whatever will look good on a college application.  It’s time we get back to the basics and prepare our teens with work-ready skills.

Work-ready skills are the professional traits and behaviors needed to be minimally qualified for and maintain employment. In order to live independently and support oneself, one must learn these skills to become employable.  So, let’s give our teen’s the best chance possible to become successful in the workforce and get started teaching them these three very important work-ready skills to help them begin learning the skills of being an employee employers are looking for.

First Step to Work-Ready Skills is Punctuality

This first step to teaching work-ready skills to our teens is to teach them to be punctual.  This may sound so simple.  And honestly, it is.  But so many teens today still rely on their parents to wake them up, their continual motivation to keep them moving, and their help each morning to get them out the door and to school on time.  The problem doesn’t lie with our teens not being able to be punctual, because everyone is able to do this skill.  The problem is we have enabled them to rely on us to do this and continue this lack of responsibility.

Punctuality is a sub skill of self-discipline.  As long as we continue to wake our teens up, they will continue to rely on us to do so and have no desire to change.  What we believe is helpfulness is really a hindrance to teaching our teens to be responsible and learning self-discipline.

I understand there are those who are more sound sleepers than others.  If your teen is one of those sleepers, there are many options and tricks to help sound sleepers wake up without your help.  Just remember your teen is not the only one who has ever been hard to wake up in this world.  And while this may make this work-ready skill a bit more challenging, it is not impossible.  Just remember you will not always be there to wake up your child, so don’t give up.  This is a skill your teen must learn.

Teens who set their own alarm and get themselves out of bed are exhibiting self-discipline.  They understand they are the only one who is responsible for their being on time.  As a result, they make choices to ensure they are on time.  If you can get your teen to be punctual without your help, your teen will have mastered their first work-ready skill!

Teamwork for the Win

The next work-ready skill we should encourage our teens to learn and practice is teamwork.  It doesn’t matter what type of job or career our teens choose in the future, that job or career will revolve around teamwork.  That is why teamwork is such an important work-ready skill.

There are many ways we can help our teen learn and practice teamwork.  If your teen has sibling, the easiest way to give them an opportunity to practice teamwork is to have your teen and at least one sibling accomplish a task at home together.  This is a great way to begin learning the skill of teamwork since they are very familiar with their sibling and comfortable interacting with them.

Teamwork outside of the home with people other than family members is also an important step in learning this skill.  Most of the time we are not as comfortable interacting with people outside of our family unit.  And since your teen will likely be working with people who are not their family it’s important to practice teamwork with others outside of the home. 

This can be done in many different forms.  Your teen could be part of a sports team.  This is a great opportunity for practicing the work-ready skill of teamwork.  Sports teams not only have other members you have to interact with, lead, and follow, but they also have a coach giving direction, which is equivalent to taking instructions from a supervisor at a job.

Outside of sports teams, your teen could join a club, be in a band, or volunteer at a local charity practice teamwork.  All of these activities give teens opportunities to lead, follow, take instruction, and work towards a common goal with others.

Integrity a Work-Ready Skill Good for All Areas of Life

A third extremely important work-ready skill that will help your teen in any future job, and really, in any relationship, is integrity.  A person who has integrity is a person who is honest, dependable, and trustworthy.  With these qualities you can understand why employees with integrity are so sought after by employers.  Employers want to know they can trust their employees to do what is right and communicate honestly with them, as well as being a dependable employee who will do what is asked of them on the job.

Integrity can be one of those skills that seems a little tricky to teach as it’s not a skill that can be taught with a straight forward step-by-step process.  It may seem like an elusive skill to teach, but it’s really not.  Instead of a tactical approach, you’ll need to be willing to demonstrate integrity to your teen and with others as your teen observes your interactions with others.  Because the best way to teach your teens about integrity is to model having integrity in real life situations.

Children, including teens, learn a lot from just watching their parents, mentors, and friends as they maneuver through everyday life.  Watching you in action to see if you are honest, dependable, and trustworthy will go a long way in teaching your teen about integrity.  If we struggle being honest, dependable, and trustworthy with our teens will notice this.  Always remember, you are either going to be someone they look up to and want to model after or someone they never want to be like.   It’s your choice.

Now that you have three work-ready skills to teach your teen, go ahead and get started!  It’s never too early to begin preparing our teens for employment.

If you’d like to learn more life skills to help prepare your teen for adulthood, check out Essential Life Skills For Teens.

Need more help? Here are two quick and easy tools to help you start preparing your teen for adulthood, so you can relax and be at peace knowing your teen is ready to take the adult world by storm!

1 – Get a copy of my Life Skills Starter Kit – It’ll give you a quick and easy activity to plug in teaching life skills to your teen in your weekly schedule…so you can start preparing your teen for adulthood, even if you and your teen are so busy or if it seems the time is flying by too fast.

2 – If you’re ready to dive in and learn how to teach life skills to your teen, grab our Life Skills Simplified Guide. Our quick-start guide is designed to help streamline teaching your teen life skills. Discover the simple, effective key steps and habits to prepare your teen for adulthood. You deserve to feel confident about teaching your teen life skills and know exactly where and how to spend your limited time!