CHAPTER 2

It’s Not Lazy, It’s Productivity Redefined

When I see a gen Y concentrating on their smartphone, my first thought used to be that they were playing video games or conversing with friends. Knowing now that technology plays a larger role in a gen Y’s life than my own boomer life, I recognize that such technology helps a gen Y participate and communicate at work.

—Post-Program Learnings, participant in Invati Consulting’s Generation University training program

A millennial employee arrives to work at half past nine, plugs in some headphones, and stays at their desk until five thirty, eating snacks and lunch along the way. A boomer arrives at eight, proceeds to alternate desk time with conversations to complete various tasks, and leaves at six. A gen Xer arrives at seven, rushes from meeting to meeting, and leaves at three thirty to pick up their child from school. How do we know which one is working hardest?

Let’s consider the definitions of hard work and laziness. The Oxford Dictionary defines laziness as “the quality of being unwilling to work or use energy.” Hardworking is defined as “tending to work with energy and commitment.” Whether it is the farmer working from sunup to sundown or the manager darting from one meeting to the next, it can be argued that each is doing hard work. Notably, neither definition says anything about the goal of the work or the process used to complete work. Both definitions position hard work and laziness as subjective qualities. There is clearly room for interpretation.

How have we been interpreting the work and work ethic of millennials? Is our interpretation correct? Has the perceived definition of work always stayed the same? If the word “lazy” doesn’t describe millennial behavior, what does?

One Coin, Two Sides Model: Lazy or Redefining Productivity?

Let’s use the One Coin, Two Sides model to explore the behavior of millennials. Recall that in this model, we look at how observable behaviors can be interpreted through the eyes of a traditional perspective in comparison to a millennial-based modern perspective. Keep in mind that not every older person has a traditional mindset. There are many forward thinkers and many traditional thinkers, across all age spans and generations. What we are referring to here is a particular perspective or mindset that’s not necessarily defined by age.

For this particular stereotype, the observable behavior is that millennials desire to work when and where they want. From a traditional perspective, this can be perceived as lazy because their beliefs are based in a world where putting in structured time equals work coming out. In contrast, from a modern, top talent perspective, this flexible work style is borne out of redefining what it takes to accomplish work today. Table 2.1 summarizes the observable behavior, the two sides, and the supporting beliefs.

Exploring the Traditional Interpretation: Lazy

Let’s dive a little bit deeper into how the observable behavior of millennials causes the perception of laziness. Millennials are perceived as lazy when they:

› Request nonstandard work hours

› Don’t want to come in to the office to complete their work

Table 2.1

Source: Invati Consulting

› Are on their device, “distracted from doing real work”

› Attempt to turn a hobby into a business instead of working a traditional 9 to 5 job where one is forced to “put in the time.” Starting a business is often seen as a ploy to avoid the “real world” and “growing up.”

From a traditional perspective, because millennials desire to work when, where, and how they want and feel okay asking to work outside the normal structure, they are perceived to be lazy. Yet recall the definitions of hard work and laziness do not prescribe how the work gets done, but only remark on whether one is willing to put in energy.

The long-standing perception of “hard work” has been based on an assumption that if you are putting in time, you are putting in effort, and that effort leads to productivity. While that conclusion made sense in yesteryear, it does not hold true in many cases today. How did we arrive at this perception of hard work? Here is a high-level overview of the evolution of work structure.

Prior to mass manufacturing, in the so-called Agrarian Age, the most common job was in a particular trade or in farming. During this time, the primary goal was to produce goods to become self-sufficient, which was difficult to do. Basic needs often weren’t met, except for a handful of wealthy elite. Working from sunup to sundown was the norm. Work was seasonal and measurable. Tasks took a certain amount of time, had to be done within a certain amount of time, and results could be easily measured. The challenges to productivity were weather- or socioeconomic-related, such as drought, war, famine, or disease.

As mechanization and factories emerged, society evolved into what is commonly called the Industrial Age. Initially, the same schedule was pursued. People, including children, worked 12 to 16 hours per day. Self-sufficiency was still the primary goal. However, although factory work could be just as routine as fieldwork, if not more so, workers faced dangerous work conditions and unpredictable layoffs. Unions fought for workers’ rights such as a regular, reduced workday in order to improve worker quality of life.

In the early 1900s, the workplace reached a turning point with Henry Ford and his new assembly line approach to manufacturing cars. Ford was among the first to cut back the workday to eight hours. Notably, he also doubled his workers’ wages. When Ford’s profit in turn doubled that of his competitors, other organizations started to get onboard. The eight-hour workday was a fight that took place over a hundred years and, surprisingly, is a relatively new concept. Federally, the law that instituted the eight-hour workday, 40-hour workweek, wasn’t passed until 1937.

At this time, productivity was again defined by physical units produced, which could be directly tied to time. The basic goal of mass manufacturing was to produce units in an efficient manner with the least amount of skill required. Every individual had a manual, often repetitive, relatively easy-to-do task where the time put in could directly be linked to the number of units produced. Output had a measurable quality or result tied to it.

In the last 40 years, concepts such as Six Sigma and lean manufacturing, based on analyzing time spent, money invested, and revenue generated for each workplace activity, have been the leading models for a productive workplace. The idea of “9 to 5” is strongly based in the manufacturing mindset and is actually a vast improvement from generations past. Based on this mindset, the unsurprising perception is that if you don’t want to work the (better) hours and at the location your employer has set, you don’t want to work. And that appears to be the very definition of lazy: an unwillingness to work or use energy.

However, this mindset has many dangers. I once had a manager who sent out an invite at 6:00 a.m. for a meeting at 8:00 a.m. on the same day. Many employees carpooled to work, myself included, and it made it impossible for me to arrive on time. After arriving 10 minutes late and attending the meeting, I was called into the manager’s office to talk about my performance issues and lack of prioritization, with the morning’s meeting as the prime example. This might sound unusual, but it is a commonplace experience for many: managers and even coworkers judge other people’s performance based on their arrival and departure times. And yet, the idea that a correlation exists between time and performance is far from a hard-stated fact for the type of work we most often do today.

The overarching beliefs of the traditional mindset are that putting in the time means getting the work done and that the organization defines what is most productive for employees. Consider, however, do we still live in a manufacturing world today? What other beliefs or societal norms do you feel influence the perception of laziness? How much has genuinely changed in the last 20 years that has affected the beliefs of the youngest adults in the workforce? If the only labor you have ever seen is labor done behind a computer, do you still believe in the same models for a productive workplace? What productivity do we stand to gain by testing the assumptions of 9 to 5?

Exploring the Modern Interpretation: Redefining Productivity

After World War II, there was a significant increase in people going to college, because of postwar benefits that funded higher education for veterans. Inventions such as radio and television gave birth to business-related fields like mass-scale marketing and advertising and with that an increased need for knowledge workers. The knowledge worker’s job was not to produce units. More and more, it was to manage work, be creative, think strategically, provide services, and build relationships. Success in these tasks slowly became more and more unrelated to the time put in.

With the emergence of digital technology in the last 30 years, we have passed the tipping point. Most jobs for the well educated are based on knowledge or nonroutine manual instead of routine manual labor. As mentioned previously, routine manual jobs have declined 10 percent, while cognitive jobs have increased by over 30 percent in the last decade.¹

In addition, we are quickly moving toward higher cognitive levels as lower-level knowledge tasks become automated due to technology. While we are aware of manufacturing and factory jobs being replaced by automated machinery and robots as well as being moved overseas to cheaper labor economies, what’s new is that now office jobs are up for automation due to increasingly intelligent software. According to an extensive research study done by Oxford’s Department of Engineering Science, 47 percent of the labor force has a high probability of becoming supplanted by automation.² This includes long-standing career paths such as bookkeeping and financial advising. The remaining 53 percent of jobs are less at risk because they require a higher order of human thinking, intuition, and skill.

What does all this have to do with flexible work styles? Although every technological revolution has come with the same fear of unemployment, the reality is that labor moves to new places, new skills, and new career paths. In the highly cognitive, complex skills world that we are moving into, I’d like to posit that 9 to 5 is not likely to be the most productive work structure. To succeed in this new world, we need to proactively consider what work structure is going to win in the future of automation and cognitive, nonroutine jobs where skilled workers will be in demand.

In addition to the evolution of highly cognitive jobs, another big difference between generations is the societal evolution of gender equality, not just in the workplace but at home. This evolution is another driver for higher work-life flexibility expectations. The 2015 Ernst & Young survey Global Generations: A Global Study on Work-Life Challenges reported that only 47 percent of working boomers have a full-time working spouse, compared to 73 percent of gen Xers and 78 percent of millennials.³ This means that less than one out of every two boomers understand the challenges and necessity of a dual-income household in today’s environment. And the empathy gap only gets worse when millennials start their family: 26 percent reported having their number of working hours increase compared to 16 percent of boomers, yet new millennial parents are half as likely to leave their job as boomers were when they had children.

For older generations, it may also come as a surprise that today only 35 percent of employed millennial men without children believe that men should be breadwinners and women should be caregivers. According to a Washington Post review of the EY study, “Nearly 40 percent of young workers, male or female, in the United States are so unhappy with the lack of paid parental-leave policies that they say they would be willing to move to another country.”⁴ While few may take this extreme action, the message is clear: workplace policies are needed that support egalitarian relationships. Millennial men want equivalent parental leave policies and millennial women want to share household responsibilities while pursuing an ambitious career. Neither wants to be negatively impacted for their egalitarian goals, but corporate workplace policies are severely lagging in this regard.

As an example, in the engineering part of my career, I recall a work environment where I was the only female in a building of over 50 people, other than the purchasing representative and the receptionist. My manager and colleagues’ ability to relate to me were next to nil—for most of them, the only women they interacted with were their wives, mothers, and sisters, many of whom worked in traditionally gender-prescribed roles such as nurses, teachers, or administrators, if they worked at all. Exploring new ideas in which employees want gender-equivalent work-life benefits was like talking about embracing an alien species. To sum it up, Karyn Twaronite, EY’s global diversity and inclusion officer, said it best: “I really see that there’s an empathy gap in the workplace. When there’s frustration about work-life balance in the workplace, and you think your boss doesn’t get it, that very likely could be true.”⁵ The positive results we stand to gain by creating egalitarian flexible work policies is a key element of the modern workplace—a place where employees can bring their full selves to work, while reducing stress and distractions.

In summary, considering the added work-life burden and higher cognitive load for even entry-level jobs, a new definition of productivity has evolved for millennials and modern talent. What some traditionally see as work during a standard 9 to 5 day—going from often ineffective meeting to meeting, catching up with a colleague at the watercooler, walking to another person’s desk to ask a question, staying later than the boss, sacrificing personal health and relationships for work—millennials often see as a waste of time, because this traditional idea of work may not be linked to productivity. Ironically, the old idea of work is perceived as “superficial” productivity—tasks that on the surface look like you’re doing work, but in reality aren’t linked to producing results.

Instead, digitally enabled millennials, who have succeeded through school and work experiences in this information-overloaded world, see taking breaks as a part of productivity. They see minimizing stress and distractions as a part of productivity. They see working out, getting enough sleep, and eating healthy as a part of productivity. From this vantage point, desiring flexibility is not a sign of laziness, it is a sign of understanding intuitively that the future of work lies in a digital, high-cognitive-load, more egalitarian world and that flexibility is what it takes to be successful in that world. For those with the modern talent mindset, we believe that the way work has traditionally been done may in fact do more harm than good and that we should be able to have more of a say in what is most productive.

Using the One Coin, Two Sides model, we have analyzed the environment, motivations, and barriers that are driving the new behavior of modern talent. In doing so, we have now introduced the clues to design a better workplace. As we see it, neither the traditional interpretation or the modern interpretation of recent events is right or wrong. You may have additions or changes you would make to the interpretations. Again, that is okay! They are simply different, evolving ways of life—truly two sides of one coin, with room for additional interpretation. When it comes to desiring flexibility, the type of work we do has changed and the type of life we are leading has changed. However, the perceived definition of productivity, and therefore the org structure and processes, haven’t quite changed. What are the modern levers we can pull for a more productive workplace?

Leveraging the New Definition of Productivity to Build Modern Organizations

Let’s introduce a more detailed, goal-oriented concept of what enables modern productivity:

to industriously, diligently pursue tactics that allow the optimal conditions for an individual to complete the mental and physical tasks needed to deliver the company’s strategic goals

As demonstrated by the One Coin, Two Sides model, the concept of what enables productivity evolves over time. Today, we are no longer responsible for creating widgets that take predictable amounts of time, which defined productivity of yesteryear. Instead, we are charged with being creative, innovative, and strategic—all while balancing a nearly impossible home life influenced by egalitarian needs, recession, and inflation. As a result, focusing on results—what the goal is—rather than how, when, and where it gets done, takes on greater importance. The key to generating productivity in the new paradigm is to shift from “putting in the time” to “meeting goals” by enabling workplace flexibility in three areas: work hours, work environment, and access to resources. These three interventions work together to stop employees from burning out from digital work and instead maximize productivity.

First, shift the focus from strict 9 to 5 work hours to a flexible structure that still gets the work done and promotes teamwork. The objective is not to lose all workplace structure, but to allow people to operate during the hours that best work for their unique life situations and neurology. Both of these aspects are equally important. If one is caring for aging parents or has children, and certain work times are more convenient, it is better to allow for those times than to have a distracted, stressed-out employee. From a neurological perspective, it may be better to have shorter stints of working on a computer with breaks that involve outdoor meetings or a period of complete disconnect from work. We need to be able “to be” as much as we need “to do” to be productive at work today!

Second, provide a mix of open office or cubicle layouts, collaborative spaces, “library”-style spaces, and outdoor areas as work environments. One of the biggest mistakes today is to eschew comprehensive understanding of all the levers available for engagement and productivity and simply invest in 100 percent open office spaces. Often, this comes from a desire to do what’s “quick and dirty” and copy the superficial changes we see working at other companies. Open office is one of these trends, implemented without having a deeper understanding of the tapestry of changes that must take place in order for all changes to succeed. Studies have now emerged supporting the ineffectiveness of this approach. A study from the Journal of Environmental Psychology in 2013 indicated that 50 percent of workers in open-plan spaces suffer from a lack of sound privacy, and 30 percent complain about a lack of visual privacy.⁶ Instead, providing a mix of spaces is much more effective to engage and enable productivity.

Lastly, productivity is determined today by how well one is able to sort and filter through vast amounts of data. Organizations aligned with technology that provide searchable, instantaneous connections to the right data, relationship, or training eliminate hours of wasted time. Traditional thinkers often complain that modern talent isn’t interested in “putting in the time” to do the grunt work. But to modern talent, grunt work often looks like wading through bureaucracy and having to have the right relationships to get the right information. When putting in time is related to gaining experience, it is invaluable. When putting in the time means reinventing the wheel or becoming a member of the “old boys’ club,” it is wasted. Flexible methods to deal effectively with information overload are critical. These methods include everything from being able to find the right person at the right time to having spaces to take a break or allow creative inspiration to strike. We will talk more about this expectation in chapter 4.

It can be incredibly rewarding to the company and the employee to adopt a flexible approach with a goal-oriented instead of time- or location-oriented focus on performance. I had just recently relocated to a new state with my company when I discovered my passion shift from engineering to something people-related. I was on the verge of leaving the company when I came across a role in training, based in the location I had just left! Upon contacting Rick Kramer, the engineering training director at the time, we talked about the opportunity and the possibility of making it location-free. Rick was open to the idea and we discussed how it would work, including structural elements like virtual core work hours, weekly check-in meetings, and monthly visits. A month later, because of Rick’s faith in being able to make it work, I transitioned into the role.

My key responsibility was to reinvent a technical training school for new hires and make it globally standard (something that had never been achieved before). It was a highly cognitive role. I worked with my teammates and gained sponsorship for my efforts virtually. I also became a first-time manager in this role and managed my new direct report virtually. And yet, my productivity increased significantly during this time. I stopped having to go to meeting after meeting or having people drop by and interrupt my flow of thought. I could choose which meetings to attend, creating clear agendas and focused working sessions. I could pause and take a walk around the neighborhood, which gave me mental capacity to create new ideas and overcome barriers. I was more intentional about building relationships and spent my time more purposefully when on-site. Ultimately, it gave me, as a millennial, the freedom to work as I always had worked before having a corporate job: outside of a cubicle, with focused, isolated time for deep thinking, with healthy breaks, and through more fun, purposeful relationships I had more choice in building.

I stayed at the company for an additional three years, making some of the best contributions I had ever made. Without Rick’s openness in considering other ways of working and goal-oriented focus for performance, the company would have lost a one-rated, top talent employee years earlier than needed, and it wouldn’t have gained the results of the high-performance work I delivered. I wouldn’t have gained the satisfaction of a job well done, without having to undergo a disruptive relocation. We were able to merge our approaches because of our openness to other ways of doing things, resulting in a relationship that worked.

In order for a workplace to become more flexible in terms of hours, environment, and resources, the underlying attitude companies and leaders must develop is to have more trust in their employees. That means believing that top talent genuinely wants to meet their goals and that one does not need to be micromanaged to do so. Micromanaging may, in fact, decrease employees’ abilities to meet their goals. We must build respect through approaching diverse work styles with curiosity. Who knows—in collaborating together and combining approaches, we may create some brand new, highly productive, engaging ways of working!

Tales from the Trenches

Here are some examples of initiatives from a snapshot of organizations that are pushing the boundaries and leading what modern workplace culture looks like today. Some of these are works in progress; others have seen significant results already. I have highlighted the mindset and work process that have enabled forward progress in order to help you gain insight into how to build momentum within your organization.

With these three case studies, we learn a few ways we can experiment with the new idea of enabling productivity and how others have implemented changes to move from a time- and location-oriented to goal-oriented focus for performance. Altering work hours, environment, and access to resources can be powerful levers to increase productivity and engagement, when combined with research and understanding of your top talent, unique workplace culture, and business needs.

Summary: From Lazy to Evolving Workplace Flexibility for Today’s Work

In this chapter, we explored our first millennial behavior and its connection to organizational culture changes. We learned that the traditional perception of working hard resides in a more structured world, where a different type of work, and therefore different measures of good work, prevailed. Although millennials could be perceived as lazy while looking through the traditional lens, the more useful, modern perception is that millennials have responded intuitively to the changes that have occurred in the way we work, what we work on, and the goals of the work. For today’s highly cognitive, nonroutine jobs and egalitarian world, workplace flexibility, not rigidity, is the key to increasing productivity. What additional perspectives would you add from your experience to the perspectives explored in the One Coin, Two Sides model?

Once we redefined what enables productivity today, we learned that workplace flexibility means flexible work hours, a flexible work environment, and access to resources. We shared stories of older generations whose traditional perspectives created barriers, like the manager with a time-focus trap he would set for employees and the workplace without a concept of egalitarian personal relationships. We also shared a story of those who leverage modern behavior like Rick and his collaborative effort to make location-free work, demonstrating the power of wearing different lenses and increasing retention, engagement, and productivity. We shared examples of successful initiatives through the story of Utah’s public sector and its flexible work hours and Microsoft’s workspace design. Finally, we shared a future vision to shift from time-based performance to goal-based performance in the consulting industry.

What inspired you through these stories? What ideas were sparked? By experimenting with workplace flexibility, we create possibilities to increase engagement and productivity, not just for millennials but all generations who know that in today’s world, their best work may not happen between the hours of 9 to 5 in an open office or cubicle. So the next time a millennial is accused of being lazy, champion a new language! Put on a modern lens, demonstrate trust and respect for all generations, and change the conversation toward reassessing productivity.

How Modern Is Your Culture?

How well do you think your organization is meeting modern talent needs? Read each statement and place an X in the appropriate column, then sum up your score. We have stated “my company” for the focus of each statement, but feel free to replace with “my immediate work group” or another community if it serves your purpose better. The assessment can also be found online at themillennialmyth.com/resources, where you can compare your answers with other readers.

If the majority of your X’s fall in the strongly disagree or disagree columns, your organization is leaning toward a traditional perspective that is at risk of disengaging modern talent. You may want to see where you can make some changes through reviewing portions of this chapter, trying the 10-Minute Champion ideas below, investigating our online resources, or reaching out to us for further help.

10-Minute Champion

What can you do to shift your organization toward a modern culture? Consider championing the following ideas in your work group, intended to take no more than 10 minutes each.

Create your personal productivity guide. Create a personal productivity worksheet that states your preferred times and places for meetings, focused work, or other categories that are important to you. Openly highlight personal life values that influence your worksheet—for example, being there for your children or, for an introvert, having enough alone time. Take a few minutes to jot down some notes on a document—pretty formatting is not necessary! Share with your team and those you work with most closely.

Implement digital productivity interventions: Become experimental! Before starting a task, consider whether it is (1) a strategic, highly cognitive task (like creating a plan), (2) a brief task (like knocking out e-mails), or (3) a group task. Quickly try a new intervention to enable productivity for the task. For example, turn off your Wi-Fi connection when you need to focus in-depth on reading or writing or thinking for a project. Another example could be taking a walk outside with a colleague instead of meeting in a room. Share your intervention with others, especially if it worked!

Become goal-oriented during team projects. Before starting your next team meeting or project, take a few minutes to get crystal clear on what you want to achieve, regardless whether you are leading the meeting or project. Take an additional few minutes at the beginning of the meeting to describe your goal with clarity. Leave yourself open to how it will get done—you may have your plans, but others may have new methods to introduce as well.

Create your own idea. Feel free to create your own idea to improve workplace flexibility and redefine productivity.