Leading and Managing Gen Y
Don Tapscott in Grown Up Digital said, “I think we’re seeing the early signs of a major collision between the freewheeling Net Generation (Gen Y) and the traditional boomer employers. It’s not necessarily a clash between Net Geners and Boomers as human beings. It’s a clash between two ideas of how work should work.”1
We agree that there is a clash coming, and coming soon: Boomers think Gen Y needs to face reality; Gen Y thinks the Boomers and the Gen Xers need to “chill”; and the Gen Xers don’t care.
Managing Gen Y may seem like a daunting task, but remember that the landscape is changing in more ways than one. In fact, it will be quite a wake-up call for Gen Yers as they face over 20 percent unemployment at entry level. This precipitates a fiercely competitive job climate that will benefit employers and serve up the most ambitious, multitasking, hard-working new recruits they have seen in decades. Put that together with the slow economy, and you have a hiring leader’s dream. Unfortunately for employers, we are not seeing this great employer-friendly climate just yet, and that is because we are on the front end of the bell curve when it comes to Gen Y.
So Boomers and Gen Xers will have to learn how to manage Gen Yers as they are and, at the same time, provide some gentle but consistent guidance so that we can all round the corner together into the new workplace environment. After all, taking a hard right curve to get to the “new” workplace environment is not the right answer. If we trash our current processes and structures and move to the environment Gen Y wants, it will be too much change at once, and it disregards all the hard work, foundation, and structure that the Boomers and Gen Xers have put into place.
It brings to mind the old phrase, “Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.”
Each generation goes further than the generation preceding it because it stands on the shoulders of that generation. You will have opportunities beyond anything we’ve ever known.
— Ronald Reagan
As a whole, we must continue to move forward, adjusting both to the swift advancements in technology and globalization as well as the unique characteristics of our incoming workforce. And there is really no argument that this is going to be a challenge.
When working with coaching clients, Hagemann often has them envision their ideal work life, project outcome, presentation, or other important scenario as a beginning process to move toward an ultimate goal. So we did a sort of “collective visioning” by pulling together everything we could find on the “ideal” work scenario for Gen Y. We wanted to answer the question, what does Gen Y want? So we went looking for the answer, and here’s what we found…. Drum roll please.
They want it all! That’s what they want. Don’t look so surprised. Isn’t that what the Boomers and the Gen Xers want? It doesn’t mean we’re going to get it, but we do all want it, now don’t we? Specifically, though, Gen Y’s list of wants can seem a bit daunting to any manager or employer.
Here are some of the common themes in Gen Yers’ long list of wants:
• to work for an employer who is honest, up-to-date, speedy, and green
• to be totally connected and at the same time totally untethered
• to be able to access their social networks, online games, etc., at work
• to be able to work on things they are passionate about
• to have full benefits and a lot of vacation
• to have customizable roles and responsibilities
• to have customizable schedule options such as part-time, flextime, temporary project-based work, job sharing, seasonal employment, shift work, and of course, telecommuting
• to have great technology with lots of techno paraphernalia and to have their employer pay for it
• to collaborate, solve problems, and work on interesting things
• to receive lots of feedback—constant feedback
• to receive personal attention from their boss
• to work on interesting and challenging work (read: “they do not want to start with grunt work and climb the ladder to higher levels”)
• to be on a team, but they do not want to lead a team, department, or business unit
To wrap it all up in a neat little package, we find that they really don’t want to be job hoppers, but they are because today’s workplace doesn’t “fit” Gen Yers very well, so they keep looking for that right fit.
So, we’ve been wondering who is going to do the work that requires independence and managing others: you know, the work that isn’t fun such as the leadership role (target on back with arrows sticking out of the target) or interesting such as the boring jobs that are simply maintenance or service oriented. Who’s going to pick up the trash in the garbage trucks or handle mountains of monotonous accounting spreadsheets? It has to be done, but Gen Yers say they aren’t going to do it. Boomers? Gen Xers? Anyone?
No one? Well, we can all see the problem. There is a clash coming, but when we sort through all the naiveté and “dream job” wishes, we can narrow the clash down to a few key areas.