Those were the views of an overwhelming number of the employers who responded to Lex Brodie's admittedly unscientific survey that ran last month in Honolulu's daily newspapers.
Brodie, a member of the Board of Education, said he knows the questions were aimed at getting the answers he wanted. "Of course. I'm a salesman," said Brodie who ran Lex Brodie's Tire Co. in Kakaako for decades before stepping aside last year.
However, he said, the overwhelming evidence in the responses was that employers want to hire young people with at least reasonable language skills, the ability to communicate with others and respect for managers and their elders.
That's not that easy to find, he said. "I had been on the receiving end for a lot of years," said Brodie, an employer for some 50 years. "There's been a constant deterioration in the quality of job applicants.
The public school system can do something about that, by using any of a number of commercial communications skills and behavior advice programs that are available, he said.
Brodie, who was reelected Tuesday to the school board, said he wants to work with the board and the Department of Education to bring social skills into the everyday agenda of education.
Brodie said he had about 170 responses from employers and about 60 from individuals including teachers and retirees.
More than 92 percent of the employers said today's graduates aren't prepared for a working environment.
Asked if social skills, such as self control and getting along with others, were essential among workers, all but two of the employers said yes.
Some 86 percent of the potential hirers said social skills should be taught in all grades up to grade 12 and 73 percent said students should be graded on their social skills. Seventy percent said that a satisfactory grade in social skills should be required before a student is allowed to advance to the next grade or to graduate.
The answers by the individuals who were not employers fell along the same lines as the employers' answers, overwhelmingly in favor of teaching and promoting social skills.
At the time the advertisements with the questions appeared, Oct. 7 through Oct. 10, Brodie acknowledged that he had no professional help in preparing the questionnaire. He said he went public with the survey because he saw it as a quick way to test public opinion. He said plans to pursue the matter with the school board.