Supervision for success: Helping young Tasmanians succeed in work
How workplaces can better support young people during their transition into employment.
For many young Australians, early employment is a major transition. Young workers are not only learning the technical tasks of a job; they are also learning the hidden expectations of working life: how to communicate, ask questions, interpret feedback, manage responsibilities, and navigate workplace relationships. This research was commissioned by SVA to better understand the factors that contribute to effective supervision of young workers and to help identify practical approaches that can improve outcomes for both employers and young people.
The report was authored by Professor Swee-Hoon Chuah, Professor Robert Hoffmann, Dr Ananta Neelim, and Dr Amber Tsai of the Tasmanian Behavioural Lab, University of Tasmania. It focuses on the workplace side of that transition. It shows that improving young people’s early employment experiences is not only about making young people more “work ready”. It is also about making workplaces more ready to support young workers.
The project involved semi-structured interviews with 9 young workers and 10 frontline supervisors across a range of Tasmanian industries, workplace settings and organisational sizes. The findings should be read as qualitative insights rather than representative population estimates. Many participants described broadly positive current work experiences, so the findings should be read as identifying practical enablers and risks rather than estimating the prevalence of poor supervision.
This report was made possible by a grant from the Tasmanian Community Fund. Macquarie Group Foundation and the Paul Ramsay Foundation also contributed via their major grant to SVA’s Rebuilding the Career Ladder program.
