From the Trenches: Lessons on Managing Generation Y
By Carolyn A. Martin, Ph.D.
Last summer, Barbara, a Boomer hospital administrator, had such a positive experience with a Gen Y intern that she recommended him to the accounting department. Just out of college, Jason hadn't thought about using his finance degree in a healthcare setting, but his internship was so valuable that he agreed to a one-year deal. Just three months later, however, Barbara received an irate call from the accounting manager. Jason had bailed out.
"See, I told you he was too young and impatient," Jason's fifty-something manager fumed. "Didn't he know he had a cushy job?"
Curious as to what went wrong, Barbara immediately got the young man on the phone. Jason's story was very different: "They put me in a cubicle for three months doing data entry," he explained. "They promised me I'd learn lots of stuff, but I wasn’t using my brain."
Generationally savvy, Barbara immediately understood the disconnect: "Cushy
job" versus "I wasn't using my brain." The most talented Gen Yers don't want
"cushy"; they want challenge. In our research on Gen Y, we've asked Yers
what they consider when deciding whether to stay in a job or leave it. Their
answers are quite telling:
* "We just need an opportunity. We don't want to be locked into dead-end jobs."
* "Get us to buy into your organization and let us contribute. We'll work our butts off and do a good job. If not, we're not afraid to move on."
* "I know it's time to leave when a position is open, I have the skills to take the position, and I've been turned down. It's worse yet to train someone off the street to take the job you're qualified for."
* "Just give us a chance to show you what we can do and what we can learn. We know we're young, but we want to contribute."
Yers want to be challenged and engaged: to learn new skills, to tackle new projects, to work with new people. When opportunities for learning and contributing disappear, so does their drive. Without a doubt, Gen Y is the highest maintenance workforce in history. But the flip side of high maintenance is high performance. Managers who make that investment will tap into a generation that wants to "use their brains" and "work their butts off" to do a good job.
Our new Managing Generation Y™ training materials will help you:
* Understand what challenges this young, emerging workforce poses to managers
* Determine how you and your organization stack up against their needs and expectations
* Define dozens of best practices you can easily implement to attract, engage, and motivate the most talented among them
For a free preview of our training materials, call us or visit our website.
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Winning the Talent Wars® |
92nd Edition - November 8, 2002 COPYRIGHT, RainmakerThinking, Inc.® http://www.rainmakerthinking.com |
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Susan Ciemniewski, Managing Editor
E-mail: susanc@rainmakerthinking.com Ph: 203.772.2002 x100 |
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