Generation Y: How to Deal with the 'New Breed' of Workers

Peter Sheahan is bewildered. Why, he asks, do corporate managers go out of their way to alienate staff who quit?

“If someone says they’re going to resign, the reaction is ‘Give me your laptop, give us your phone, done, you’re out’,” says Sheahan, one of Australia’s new breed of business advisers.

The chastised worker leaves… and never comes back. Most managers ‘suck’ at exit interviews, according to Sheahan who offers an alternative line to be delivered to departing staff: ‘Thanks very much. We really appreciate what you did. If you want to come back, give us a call.”

Sheahan is hot property in a business community that is confronting a serious talent crisis and striving to attract, develop and retain young talent. With research indicating that the four million Australians in Generation Y – those born between 1978 and 1996 – will have 29 different jobs across five different industries in their working lives, retaining young staff in a single position will be nigh on impossible.

“Don’t try,” Sheahan says. “That’s the wrong paradigm. We should be trying to retain them in the organisation, not in a specific position, and that will involve, among other things, giving them the opportunity to move laterally to seek out new learning experiences.”

More important, he argues, is trying to get a positive return on staff investments and endeavouring to retain their knowledge and intellectual property – even after they resign.

Most managers, according to Sheahan, have no clue how to manage Gen Y. Central to the Gen Y debate is Australia’s talent squeeze. Unemployment is at historic lows and elite executives are jetting off to the likes of London, New York and Tokyo chasing life experiences and big pay packets. Without this loss of brainpower, Sheahan says no one would be wringing their hands over Gen Y. “They’d have so many people to choose from that if someone came in with a bad attitude you’d say ‘Stick it, I’m going to find someone else’.”

Power has shifted from the institution to the individual.

“It’s not about how many resources or how much labour you can leverage, it’s about how much talent you can leverage. It’s about knowledge.”

Unflattering stereotype

The stereotype of Generation Y is not always flattering: they are lifestyle-centred, impatient, sceptical, street-smart, socially aware, independent, tech-savvy and perhaps a touch over-confident. As they rise through the ranks, a clash of cultures is testing workplaces.

“It’s becoming an increasingly big problem because this is a generation with truly different values who are not prepared to work the 90 hours a week for 20 years to become a partner in an accounting firm or law firm,” Sheahan says.

‘Who cares’ is the attitude, Sheahan says. “I’m going to get my work done and what does it matter if I did it in five hours or eight?”

For the 40-plus age group, this attitude does not always sit well. They have done the hard slog and are now seeing 22-year old upstarts blow in demanding the world.

Sheahan explains: “It’s not an error on behalf of the generation or necessarily on behalf of the managers, but people are finding a big mismatch… It’s about power. People who have worked 25 years to get to the top don’t want to let go of the power they’ve got.”

He has little sympathy for baby boomers as they wrestle with the challenge. “The boomers started this trend. They’re now trying to pull it back because they are in the positions of power.”

Not For Him

While his generation often gets a bad rap, Sheahan has some good news for corporations: when properly engaged Generation Y is the most creative, innovative and inspired generation yet. This brings us to the big questions: what does Generation Y want, and how can companies ensure they get the best out of them?

“… Generation Y is the most creative, innovative and inspired generation yet.”

“This is a generation that doesn’t respect title and position. They respect people, but they’ll only respect people who first respect them. And that’s a revolutionary concept in the workplace.’

“If you are to truly respect someone you must validate who they are, what they’ve done and the potential of where they could go.”

What that does not mean is having a grading system that ranks workers from A to P (Sheahan has seen such system in his corporate travels). And it definitely does not involve managers talking about their low-paid, front-of-office staff as ‘basket weavers’.

“These are the people dealing with the client, the customer,” he says, voice raising. “They’re the basket weaver! Well, you know what, for a customer they’re the touch point for your organisation. And if they are just a basket weaver then you need to get your head read.”

Generation Y wants rewards and recognition. Money is important, but it is not the be-all and end-all. They do however, want to be paid what they are worth. If they perform the same job as a 40-year-old and are getting the same results, they demand the same pay.

“Sport has been about talent for years. When I talk about talent, people think about orchestras and sporting teams. Well, why aren’t they thinking of HR departments or accounting divisions?”

While baby boomers and generations X and Y are slotted into neatly defined age brackets, Sheahan concedes that such categories are superficial.

“To tell you the truth, it’s not about chronology, it’s about mindset. I’ve met 45 year olds who have got the Gen Y mindset. They get it.”

That means they value thought leadership. They do not want to give up their lives or families for ‘corporate slavery’. They want life experiences.

Sheahan has a couple of other admissions. First, he says members of Gen Y do not know everything; they lack experience and they need guidance. It sounds like heresy given his mantra, but they don’t know how to play the game and need help and understanding from older workers.

For businesses that get it wrong and alienate Generation Y, there is a cost. Sheahan says they will pay in the form of higher recruitment costs and lower returns. “I don’t think it’s catastrophic. I just think it’s a path to mediocrity.”

“It’s not the information age any more”, he says, “It’s the creative age.”

Article cited in ‘Management Today’, June 2005 Edition.