blog

What To Do With Gen Y

by Steven

Over the last year I have had a lot of discussions with clients and kasina employees about working with Gen Y. Generation gaps exist for all generations, and the gap between Generation X and Y is becoming more and more apparent. One day, those of us in Generation X woke up and realized that we didn't understand our young employees anymore.

"I don't feel like doing this kind of work."

"I am really frustrated right now."

"Do we need to meet about this in person?"

Gen Y, which includes individuals born between 1979 and 2000, consists of approximately 76 million people, 20% of the overall population. They already represent 10% of our workforce -- this percentage will double by 2012.

Why then, do those of us in Gen X just sit here sipping our coffee and complaining that those in Gen Y don't know how to conduct themselves in a work environment, instead of taking the time to identify productive ways to solve these challenges? The fact of the matter is that outside of the Baby Boomers, Gen Y is the single largest segment of our society. We only have two choices:

1. Stick our heads in the sand and hope that Gen Y will go away
2. Adjust our organizations and inspire Gen Y to work with us

It is interesting to learn about why they are so different from us. Most of the discrepancies can be traced back to their baby boomer parents. Most of the Gen X parents are from the Silent Generation (born 1925-1942, now age 66-83) who told us that we would not amount to much unless we worked hard and proved ourselves. Baby Boomer parents, ensured that their Gen Y kids had every modern convenience, told them every day that they were special and that they were winners no matter what they did.

A client of mine actually received a phone call from the angry mother of an employee who wanted to register a complaint about her daughter's performance review.

This method of childrearing has resulted in Gen Y having different expectations of the office environment than we had when we started working.

Here are a few Gen Y traits that we, and others, have identified:

• They want their work to mean something personally and to be identifiably important to their company. They want to have a tangible understanding of how their tasks connect to the overall mission of their organizations.
• Traditional advancement isn't as important to them as feeling useful and having a meaningful experience.
• They are the confident products of encouraged self-esteem and educational opportunities.
• Friendship is such a strong motivator for Gen Y workers that they will choose jobs just to be with their friends.
• They are connected and technologically adept. They use cell phones and the Web as their primary means of communication.
• They believe that they can do it all.

I have started to understand that the key to working with Gen Y is to effectively cater to their unique preferences and needs. Here are some examples:

• They can be very loyal if their needs are met, but they are not unquestioningly loyal or intimidated by hierarchy. Gen Y wants to know they are compensated fairly for the work they put in.
• It's not precisely true that Gen Y doesn't want to do "grunt" work. They actually don't mind it as long as they know why they are asked to do it and how it contributes to their personal or professional growth.
• Many Xers complain that Yers require too much praise. They do want praise, but we are responsible for setting expectations and guiding them appropriately toward the objectives that the company has set for them. Often times their priorities are misaligned with the company's priorities for them, and that leads to miscommunication and the feeling that they are being unduly criticized.
• We try to give our employees flexibility. For kasina, and for Gen Y, it is more about the total output than about where and at what time the works gets done.
• Gen Y feels special and they want to have personal responsibilities. This means that every employee needs to have their own goals and metrics for success.
• We need to be more successful in laying out a clear sense of where they can go in the company, how they can get there, and what they will have when they arrive. By laying out this clear path, Gen Yers are more likely to buy into the objectives of the firm.
• We work hard not to treat them as if they don't have the necessary experience. We have learned that honesty and directness is what they value most in us.

It is not just that the Gen Yers have to adjust to us. We need to adjust to them too.