QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"It's like the every other decade theory. The fifties were boring. The sixties rocked. The seventies, oh my God, they obviously sucked. Maybe the eighties will be radical. You know, I figure we'll be in our twenties. It can't get any worse."

- Cynthia (Dazed & Confused movie)

The Most Commonly Used Media of Generation Y:

Top 5 general web sites visited:

1. eBay.com

2. Amazon.com

3. CNN

4. MTV

5. KaZaA

Can you imagine your boss counseling & assisting YOU on your next career move, OUT OF THEIR COMPANY?

Can you imagine counseling & assisting YOUR BEST EMPLOYEES on their next career move, OUT OF YOUR COMPANY, possibly to a rival?

Well, that's exactly what Deloitte Touche, the accounting firm is doing in an effort to curb employee retention. This initiative was reported in Time magazine, in an article entitled "What Gen Y Really Wants" by Penelope Trunk.

This program was created by Deloitte's Stan Smith, National Director of Next-Generation Initiatives after he consulted with the Gen Y's at his company, asking "what attracts and keeps them at a job." Smith found, "that job hopping is not an end in itself but something young workers do when they see no other choice."

Deloitte's response to this: "Programs at Deloitte that focus on helping people figure out their next career move", wherever it might be.

The reason for this: "People would rather stay at one company and grow, but they don't think they can do that," Smith says, "Two-thirds of the people who left Deloitte left to do something they could have done with us, but we made it difficult for them to transition." Smith is betting that in many cases, the best place for a restless young person is simply another spot in Deloitte. This saves the company the $150,000 cost of losing an employee--not to mention the stress for employees of changing jobs."


You can find the article in its entirety here: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1640395,00.html

Five Reasons Gen X Is Cool with Gen Y from Workforce.com

By Kris Dunn

Generational experts love to talk about boomers retiring and the workplace needs of Gen Y, otherwise known as the Millennials. If you’re a recruiter or an HR pro, you can’t escape it. When’s the last time you read an article about the workplace needs of Gen X? By Kris Dunn
enerational experts love to talk about boomers retiring and the workplace needs of Gen Y, otherwise known as the Millennials. If you’re a recruiter or a HR pro, you can’t escape it.
When’s the last time you read an article about the workplace needs of Gen X?

Never?

Right—because no one cares. Nirvana, Eddie Vedder, the grunge thing, maybe a little bit of angst thrown in ... that was about it. Then Gen X went to work. No blogs talking about how much work is intolerable, no workplace consultants pitching how we were different, and no helicopter parents questioning our rejections. We just plugged into working America and figured it out over time.

That makes us the middle children of history. We are Jan Brady—compliant and serviceable, but never featured on the cover of the brochure. It’s always about Marcia (the boomers) or Cindy (Gen Y).

As a result, some generational pundits believe Gen X is upset by the amount of attention generated toward the workplace needs of Millennials. After all, they haven’t paid their dues. Why all the hype?

Speaking from the perspective of someone who manages Gen X, nothing could be further from the truth. I haven’t experienced a single Gen X representative wringing their hands about the unrealistic needs of the Millennials. It’s a non-event to the Gen X managers and employees I know.

So let’s debunk the myth and start hugging it out. Maybe we can even conspire to throw the boomers out. With my favorite Gen X and Gen Y pros in mind, here are my top five reasons why Gen X is cool with Gen Y:

1. We’re young enough to remember how clueless we were: Let’s consider the harsh stereotypes of Millennials for a second. Reports say they’re selfish and unwilling to pay dues, and value work/life balance to an extreme. Is that really that bad? Doesn’t every generation come into the workplace with stereotypes? My generation floated into the workplace wondering if flannel was acceptable attire, thought every city that wasn’t Seattle or Compton was lame, and cried when Kurt Cobain left the building. The boomers raged against various machines, including Vietnam, Nixon and those who would withhold civil rights. In some ways, the Millennials look positively corporate in comparison.Every generation walks into the workplace with their boss wondering if it’s going to work out. It usually does, even though the diversity of the next generation makes great filler for mainstream magazines and consultants. If I ever need patience with a Millennial, all I need to do is go to the photo album and find a picture that looks like this. Reminders that Gen X and boomers didn’t have a clue "back in the day" should be the first chapter of any generational training session for managers.

2. We like the strengths we see in Gen Y: When I interview Gen Y candidates, I see three main themes, including a strong desire for work/life balance, an incredible comfort with technology and an appetite for responsibility. Remind me again what the issue is? I like those attributes, with the only potential issue being the appetite for responsibility before the skills and experience are present to warrant it. There’s a word for what you have to do to manage individual expectations in the workplace. It’s called coaching.Gen X is the primary benefactor of the Millennial hype machine in one critical area—work/life balance. In many environments, hours worked and when you work them matter. Thanks to the Millennial conversation, it’s now much more acceptable to leave on time or even (gasp!) early. As long as the work gets done at a high level, it matters less now than ever. Thanks baby brothers and sisters!

3. Somebody’s got to do the work: Let’s face it, the work has to get done. In any department of any size in corporate America, that means you are going to recruit, sign and coach Millennials. I’ve already established my belief that the differences are overplayed by the media and consultants alike, but even if all the stereotypes were as intense as reported, you still need the Millennials. Like the budget process, low unemployment when attempting to recruit, and the rising cost of health care, you work through it. No reason to be a hater.

4. We’re close enough to the ground to see through the stereotypes: Any stereotype can be directionally accurate but hopelessly flawed when applied to an individual. Like all generations, the Millennials include high, average, and low performers, and varying degrees of potential. When coached for performance, the issues encountered are acutely unique to the individual. Thinking each individual is going to have the same needs or issues isn’t the reality. It’s a stereotype. Some stereotypes get you sued. Believing stereotypes about Gen Y just makes you an ineffective manager and coach.

5. Like us, Gen Y is going to start having kids: Every generation is self-absorbed at an early age. That’s just part of growing up. When someone’s self-absorbed in the workplace, they need more attention. Then a funny thing happens: People start having kids. When people have kids, all kinds of things occur. Employees with kids become more conservative, less tolerant of career risk and generally less needy in the workplace. If you’re still wringing your hands about those darn Millennials, relax! Once they start having kids, the hard edges you see are naturally going to smooth out a bit. It’s the natural circle of life.

Of course, Millennials may delay having kids. If Gen X waited until their 30s to have offspring, Gen Y may wait until they’re 40. The good news is that you’ll be working for them at that point, so the transformation you see will actually help you relate and connect with your Millennial manager.

What else can I say? Let’s get together and talk about what we’ve got in common, instead of looking at our differences. But let’s do it early. I’m leaving at 3 p.m. for some "me" time. Thanks for making even thinking that acceptable, Gen Y!!

Part of the Millenials at the Gate article from workforce.com

By

John Hollon

http://www.workforce.com/section/01/feature/25/40/27/index.html

... First, I think the boomers are going to take their time leaving the workforce. Second, there is a huge group of new workers now gearing up to take their place: the Millennials (also known as Generation Y), who were born after 1980.

They are here and ready to start working—but what if we aren’t ready to let them? Last month, I was surprised to read in The Dallas Morning News about an advertising executive who had decided to stop hiring newly graduated Millennials unless they have an advanced degree or have done a work-related internship. The executive said that it wasn’t because Millennials lack creativity or technical know-how, but rather because they lack the ability to deal with responsibility, accountability and setbacks.

“They wipe out on life as often as they wipe out on work itself,” advertising executive Owen Hannay said. “They get an apartment and a kitty, and they can’t cope. Work becomes an ancillary casualty.”

The problem, according to a generational expert who talked to the newspaper, is that Millennials have been “overparented, overindulged and overprotected. They haven’t experienced that much failure, frustration, pain. We were so obsessed with protecting and promoting their self-esteem that they crumble like cookies when they discover the world doesn’t revolve around them. They get into the real world and they’re shocked.” Well, maybe some are, but how can you broad-brush a group of 80 million people? Hasn’t every generation entering the workforce had its own share of strengths and challenges? I have a close-up view of the Millennial generation: Not only do I have three in my own household, but I teach writing to a class full of them at a local university. And, although Millennials have their own unique generational issues, the ones I deal with reflect what you would find in society as a whole—some are good, some average, some clueless. How different is that from any other group?

“Some of them are the greatest generation,” said Marian Salzman, an ad agency executive at J. Walter Thompson who talked to 60 Minutes in November and invoked the term used for the pre-boomers who fought World War II and held down the home front. “They’re more hardworking. They have these tools to get things done. They are enormously clever and resourceful. [But] some of the others are absolutely incorrigible. It’s their way or the highway.”

The rap on the Millennials is that they have been spoiled and coddled, but they also tend to be much more realistic and pragmatic about the modern workplace. “I remember my dad getting laid off and all these things growing up,” one Millennial told 60 Minutes. “And that’s ’cause they sacrificed for the company. Well, the first knee-jerk reaction from me is, I sure don’t want to do that. I’m going to be in it for me and I’m going to make it work.”

From my perspective, this is a much healthier way to view work. It’s the result of more than 20 years of Corporate America treating workers like disposable parts, and now, the next generation of workers is saying, “We are aren’t going to do it the way our parents did.”

Maybe that’s the one thing the Millennials can teach the rest of us: that work is the means to an end, a way to help reach our goals but not the end goal itself. They are going to do it differently, and like it or not, we’d better be ready. Once this generation fully takes over, our workplaces will never be the same.

Quote of the Week

Parents often talk about the younger generation as if they didn't have anything to do with it.

~Haim Ginott