Home topics workplace hr-and-staff News Staff Tech News Youth workers lacking skills needed by digital world of work Dynamic Business April 21, 2016 They’re usually thought of as being digital natives, but a new report has found youth workers actually lack the enterprise skills needed for the modern workplace. According to a new report released by the Foundation for Young Australians, key enterprise skills including problem solving, digital literacy and financial literacy are in short supply. Part of the problem is that current teaching curriculums focus almost exclusively on technical skills required for a particular task, role or industry. Technical skills provide for qualifications such as licences, certificates or degrees, and also include skills acquired on-the-job – like machinery operation or learning particular software. Enterprise skills on the other hand are more innate, and require being fostered from a young age. The FYA report outlined enterprise skills as: Problem solving Communication skills Digital literacy Teamwork Presentation skills Critical thinking Creativity Financial literacy The FYA report found less than half of Australian secondary school teachers reported frequently involving students in “small groups to come up with a joint solution to a problem or task” – the type of activity that fosters enterprise skills. In looking at how young people fared in the transition from school to work, it was found that close to a third of Australian 15 year olds had low proficiency in both financial literacy and problem solving as well as a quarter demonstrating low proficiency in digital literacy.