Managing the Millennials

Discover the Core Competencies for Managing Today's Workforce

Chip Espinoza, Mick Ukleja

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781119261681
• eBook ISBN: 9781119261698
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

The Builders, Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials—all make up workforces in every type of industry all over the world. The generational gaps are numerous and distinctly different between each age group, and Millennials have gotten a reputation for being particularly unique and often challenging. In this updated and expanded Second Edition of the popular guidebook Managing the Millennials, you'll see how Millennial traits are the same around the globe.

In fact, Millennials are more alike than any other generation before them due in large part to rapid advances in technology that let us share more experiences together. These same rapid advances are also redefining the fundamental ways businesses operate, and this revised edition includes the international perspective today's valuable leadership needs to attract and retain these high-performing workers with very different values and expectations. With fresh research and new real-world examples, the powerhouse authorial team reexamines the differences between how different generations work today in businesses around the world, with insightful exploration into what makes the Millennial generation so different from the ones that came before. The authors reveal nine specific points of tension commonly arising from clashing value systems among generations and prescribe nine proven solutions to resolve conflict and build communication, nurture collaborative teams, and create long-lasting relationships among colleagues of every age. A wealth of informative tables and convenient end-of-chapter summaries make this an invaluable everyday reference to support you:

• Making the most informed decisions with up-to-date, research-based guidance on getting the most from twenty-something employees
• Executing solutions to the most common obstacles to younger workers engaging and learning from the people who manage them
• Enhancing your skills as a job coach with practical tips and hands-on tools for coaching Millennials, including concrete action steps for overcoming roadblocks

Complete with case studies of real managers and employees interacting in every area of business, enlightening analysis of performance and behavioral patterns across generations, and easy-to-use techniques you can use right away to improve your organization, Managing the Millennials, Second Edition gives you everything you need to inspire your entire workforce to new levels of productivity.

Part I
The Millennial Phenomenon

Chapter 1
The Millennials and You

If we don't like a job, we quit, because the worst thing that can happen is that we move back home. There's no stigma, and many of us grew up with both parents working, so our moms would love nothing more than to cook our favorite meatloaf.

—Jason Ryan Dorsey (28 years old)¹

Have you noticed the change in your workplace? Young people—particularly members of a new generation of workers that we refer to as Millennials—have recently become the largest age cohort in the workforce. Are you ready for them? And have you noticed that they are a little different than you? You might even think they are strange or that they do not quite have “it” together. Maybe they sometimes show up to work wearing flip-flops or they have iPod headphones hanging from their ears. And perhaps they just sit at their desks waiting for someone to give them something to do.

In 2015, Millennials comprised 35 percent of the workforce—nearly 54 million workers.² Within the next decade, Millennials will be all in! By 2020, one in three adults will be a Millennial, and when the clock clicks 2025, three of four workers will be from the Millennial generation.³ Successful managers will be the ones who understand, appreciate, and learn to work with the differences in values, work-life priorities, and expectations they bring.

The Millennial flood has become front-page news—virtually every form of media is talking about it, from the Saturday Night Live' sketch “The Millennials” to newspapers to niche magazines and journals. USA Today had this to say on the topic: “Businesses are struggling to keep pace with a new generation of young people entering the workforce who have starkly different attitudes and desires than employees over the past few decades.” Human Resource Executive says, “Millennials, people primarily in their twenties, are entering the workforce bringing with them new promises and challenges for HR, not to mention a whole new way of working.” Clearly, something has changed from previous generations to this newest generation of twentysomethings, and management is worried that the change is not all good.

Let us say that you run a corporation—who is going to take over for you when you're gone? Do you think the next generation is ready to take over? Or perhaps you run a family business—do you think your kids are ready to step into that role? Guess what—today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. It is here. Now.

The new generation of twentysomethings has seen the help-wanted signs in our windows. They know we really need them—and guess what? They need us just as much as we need them. So the thing to do is to reach out and get to know them. What motivates them? What do they think? How do they learn? What do they expect? Why reach out? Because we each have what the other really wants and needs, and because our success—and the success of our organizations—depends on it.

The Generations at Work

But aren't all youth the same? The answer to that is yes and no. There are some common characteristics of all youth, whether they were born a hundred years ago or just a decade ago. Before we address whether all youth are the same, let's briefly outline the four generations currently in the workplace.

In our training sessions, we do an exercise where we break into groups and have the participants talk about the clothing they wore, the music they listened to, the sociopolitical events they remember, and the technology they used in their adolescence and young adulthood. You can imagine how quickly people start to compare their experiences. In one of our sessions, a Builder, a person born from 1925 through the end of World War II to 1945, told of how her family shared a telephone with other families in the area. Few people today remember that sharing a phone line was referred to as a “party line.” A Millennial pulled a smartphone out of his pocket and said, “This is my party line. I can connect to five people at once.”

The Builders

There were 56 million Builders. The Great Depression, Roosevelt's New Deal, the Korean War, World War II, the GI Bill—all left an indelible stamp on the members of this generation. As a result of the GI Bill, 49 percent of those admitted into college in 1947 were veterans. By 1956, nearly 8 million World War II veterans had taken advantage of the opportunity to further their education.⁴ Authority was important as was hard work, honor, and delayed gratification. People were willing to work 30 years or more before they got their gold watch and could retire. It was not uncommon to spend one's entire career at one company.

The Baby Boomers

Then along came the next generation—the Baby Boomers—born from 1946 to 1964, numbering 80 million or so men and women. Vietnam, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, the Women's Liberation Movement, television, and rock and roll all made an indelible impression on this generation. The Baby Boomers protested in favor of equality for everybody, and they discovered the charms of credit cards (which drove their Builder parents crazy—Builders learned from the Depression not to buy on credit). The Kennedy and King assassinations robbed them of their innocence, while the moon landing showed the world they could do anything they set their minds to. For the Baby Boomers, values such as professional identity, health and wellness, and material wealth are all very important. Boomers are forever young—run fast, jump long, and throw hard. They wanted free drugs in the 1960s and now they want free drugs again, this time from Medicare. Because they find much of their identity in their work, it is no surprise that Baby Boomers have added one month per year to the workweek. When it comes to technology, they use it to do more work—not less.

Generation X

Then along came another group—Generation X—born from 1965 to 1979, which numbers 61 million.⁵ Gen X(ers) were influenced by more recent events, such as the Persian Gulf War, the Challenger explosion, AIDS, corporate downsizing, a tripling of the divorce rate, both parents working (latchkey kids), video games, MTV, computers—all made their mark on this generation. They were suspicious of their parents. They say, “Wait a minute. You mean you can land a man on the moon, and yet you can't even get a rocket off the launch pad?” They witnessed environmental disasters such as Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. Gen X was coming of age during the Watergate scandal that led to the impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon.

Some of the values that emerged from their experience include mobility and autonomy. They need to be independent. Their greatest value is to have balance in their lives. Technology came of age, and the members of this generation use it for work-life balance. They don't perceive a need to be in the office—they could sit on the beach and do their work.

The Millennials

Today, there's a new generation known as Millennials (aka Gen Y). Demographers place their birth years between 1980 and 2000. There are 92 million Millennials.⁶ They have been shaped by 9/11 and terrorism, Columbine (which took the King and Kennedy assassinations to a new and more personal level), environmentalism, cell phones, text messaging, technology-based social networking, and a strong emphasis on social responsibility.

Technology isn't a tool to just do more work or to achieve work-life blending—it is an integral part of the members of this group, and working with it has become second nature. The members of this new generation want and need constant feedback. Why? Because they were raised in democratic and praise-based families that proudly displayed “My kid made the honor roll” bumper stickers. They grew up in an era where the focus of parenting was nurturing. They have grown up working on teams in school and on academic projects. When they get into the workforce, they expect to work in teams. Diversity is important to them. If they walk ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Introduction: Close Encounters with a Different Kind
• Part I: The Millennial Phenomenon
• Part II: Discover the Core Competencies for Managing Today's Workforce
• Part III: Your Competitive Advantage
• Acknowledgments
• Index
• End User License Agreement