Turning Gen Y On

Preface

From a Gen X

As a manager and owner of my own business, I recruit, develop, mentor, and (regrettably) fire staff on a regular basis.

As a psychologist and coach, I am well aware that career development is an emerging field of study as Gen Y (Generation Y) employees are expecting the workplace to give them more than any other generation. With my generation, we asked for more and settled for less. This new generation is not going to settle for less anytime soon. And they will radically shape some workplace behaviours through their demands for more.

Many times, I have been told I am a Gen Y in a Gen X body. This is in reference to the fact that I am single, highly educated, employable, and, unlike Gen Ys, have the added bonus of years of experience in my field.

Like Gen Ys, I am comfortable with the idea of leaving a job at any time should I not like it enough. I want my job or client’s project to be something I enjoy on top of the money I stand to receive. I do not do hardship tours and have rejected work offers in the Middle East as I felt they would affect my social life, and I was afraid that they would become a hidden cost to me, despite the potential gains it offered to my career path.

Having Gen Y sensibilities, I empathise greatly with Gen Ys who desire to work for a mission, not just monetary rewards; to work in a company with a great culture and not just a rigid hierarchy determined more by age and past experience than results in current tasks.

Many companies, in Asia and throughout the world, still have older leaders from previous generations, who bark: Follow me and do as I say (but don’t do as I do)! In the past, we all just jumped up and followed (most of the time). Leaders did not pause to ask for consensus. Now if any leader barks, when he or she turns around, there may no longer be anyone behind him or her.

I want this book to help managers who are enlightened and who want to create a New Generation Workplace see what I see and learn how to Turn Gen Y On. In fact, it is not just what the Gen Y wants – it is what all the workforce generations have wanted but did not dare to speak up for.

I also want to bring great companies – that work and grow and are profitable – to the awareness of the average manager and CEO. The people management strategies of these great companies are certainly worth emulating.

Let’s start measuring our bottom lines with People, Profits, and Planet. But remember to put People first – the rest will naturally follow.

Marion Neubronner

From a Gen Y

Among the managers that I have encountered, I noticed a huge discrepancy between the way Gen Ys and their managers perceive their abilities.

The truth is, this generation has the potential to be the most exceptional and innovative generation of employees, and to give companies the extra boost and breakthrough they need. However, many managers cannot see that.

Unfortunately, the data sets on Gen Ys at work do not cater to Singapore’s unique culture. Managers in Singapore who want to understand exactly how to deal with their Gen Ys currently do not have a resource. They are left to experiment through trial and error, only to realise that these efforts on their part still do not give them the results they want.

This realisation led Marion to write this book for managers who are trying their very best to harness the potential of their Gen Ys in order to achieve greater organisational success.

This book is not meant to provide you with direct and easy solutions. This book is meant to provide you with the psychological blueprint (without over-generalising and stereotyping) of a Gen Y for you to analyse and utilise.

Every Gen Y is a gem. You just need to know how to polish them and let them shine.

Josephine Poh

Introduction

I first recognised that the gap was widening in 2007.

I was teaching undergraduate psychology and I knew many new graduates. When they left the university, they were excited and eager to work. Yet, batch after batch would return to me disillusioned about office politics and the poor state of the workplace.

On the other hand, my friends, who were holding management positions in companies, would constantly grumble to me about the poor quality of work ethics being exhibited by the new members of the workforce.

Essentially, there was a disconnect. And it has been growing ever since.

In Singapore in 2013, the job turnover rate was estimated to be about 16%, and expected to increase.¹ In the other parts of Asia, we hear the same disgruntlement. Gen Y employees (born between the early 1980s to 2000) do not stay long in organisations. This leads to increases in the cost of training, retraining, and reorganising workplace systems. The knowledge transfer does not occur as naturally as it did in the past, as staff do not stay longer than two years. The Gen Y employee tends to job hop.

The Gen Ys who do stay are not fitting into the organisations well either. I have been conducting the Managing a Multigenerational Workforce workshop for the last six years and when I ask managers why they want to attend it, invariably they reply that they need to understand and attend to the following Gen Y behaviours:

•Want promotions fast and before the usual times allocated by companies for such a career progression

•Have poor attention to detail, which affects the quality of their work

•See their managers as equals, tend to speak to them in the same manner as they would their friends, and ask Why me? when assigned tasks they dislike

•Are self-centred and lack responsibility to see tasks through; they run off exactly at 6pm

•Lack a sense of urgency

•Do not understand the challenges the managers and other superiors face in running a company

•Say Yes but then do not follow through on it

•Seem to know what they are doing and do not like being micromanaged; however, at the end of the day, the quality of the work they produce is lacking and could have benefited from their asking for assistance or guidance earlier

•Need to be motivated to work

•Take many days of medical leave and want more time off and flexible working schedules

Any of the above sounds familiar to you?

As cited in a survey performed by the Society of Human Resource Professionals in 2004, up to 60% of human resource professionals at large organisations in the U.S. reported tension between Gen Y and older employees.² In addition, more than a quarter of the responders felt this tension had only worsened over the past five years, and a third of the respondents expected this situation to worsen over the next few years.³

In Asia, 50% of workers report similar cross-generational conflicts in the workplace.⁴

In places like Jakarta, the banking industry is plagued by a new human resource challenge. The bank heads and management are in their late 50s to 60s. Their new incoming staff are in their 20s. Many managers face a huge challenge relating to someone younger and with a mindset completely different from theirs. In the past, with jobs being scarce and younger people needing to work to support their families, the younger generation would learn to live and bear with managers from hell. In recent times, Gen Y workers show their displeasure with their feet, leaving jobs rather than staying. While it is not uncommon to leave a job that is not a good fit, the real differentiator is that Gen Y are leaving without another job in hand. They would rather not work than work for a place where they are unhappy.

So while hiring may not be a challenge for sexy industries like banking, media, and IT, retention is the new problem for every industry.

On the flip side, industries like oil and gas, healthcare, and hospitality are being hit by a lack of enthusiastic applicants for their numerous vacancies. These are industries considered by the younger workforce to be difficult for various reasons.

In Singapore, oil and gas and some technology companies are based in Tuas or Jurong which are considered remote parts of the island – too far from the city. Service-oriented industries require Gen Ys to take care of other people’s needs – something many consider a lowering of one’s social status. Finally, shift work is a big no-no – it affects work-life balance.

A survey of 300 large organisations around the globe found that almost every company had a diversity programme in place. However, only 72% of these organisations had diversity efforts in relation to bridging the gap between older and younger generations. Of these, 28% of these organisations felt their age-related diversity programmes could be greatly improved upon.⁵

What does this all mean for managers who lead Gen Y teams, colleagues who work with Gen Ys, and Gen Ys themselves who want to enter and stay happy in the workforce?

As a psychologist by training, I observe human behaviour and the reasons why people do what they do. Rather than demonise the Gen Ys as being lazy and managers as being overly demanding, I would rather examine how the situation arose – the factors and influences that shaped Gen Ys to be the way they are today, and the ways companies and even families may have to reshape their company culture and training to match the new needs of the next generation workforce so that we all have happy, productive, and fulfilling careers and lives.

PART ONE

RECRUITING

Before bringing new Gen Ys on board, it is critical to take time to get to know them better. This section will provide strategies, case studies, and exercises to help you gain that understanding to help attract them to your organisation.

The Then-and-Now Game

There is a game I play at all my workshops. I ask my participants to remember themselves at 21, and then to imagine themselves being 21 years old now. With these two situations in mind, I give them a set of questions to answer.

Category 1: Food. When you were 21, what did you eat?

THEN: Meals prepared from scratch using fresh produce bought from the market.

Families used to have dinner together. This meant that food had to be portioned out, usually by mothers or grandmothers. Depending on the hierarchy at the table, either the oldest or the youngest would be served first. If there was only one portion left, permission had to be sought before taking the last piece.

Young people saw their family members taking time and making effort to prepare food. Ready-prepared meals and fast food were rare treats.

NOW: Pre-cooked food, McDonalds, junk food, takeaways from hawker centres/food courts.

Food is plentiful. There are usually leftovers after a meal. There is not much need to share things out or negotiate. Young people tend to eat dinner out with their friends or pack it back home to eat by themselves. They are also more acclimatised to eating individually plated portions.

Young people now also have little or no involvement in preparing and cooking the food they eat. They do not even get to see the time and effort put into food preparation.

Because of this, young people now have fewer experiences that allow them to understand the concepts of sharing and limited resources.

Category 2: Leisure. When you were 21, what did you do in your free time?

THEN: Mostly going out to the cinema, visiting the beach, cycling, sports, shopping.

Engaging in leisure activities with friends required pre-planning. If you made a date to watch a movie, you had to ensure you showed up at the stipulated time and place, or else your friends would be left waiting, unable to locate you.

Leisure activities also included an element of creation. Games like pick-up sticks, making paper dolls and lanterns, etc. required young people to create and innovate using whatever limited resources they could find.

NOW: Staying in to play computer games, meet-ups over coffee, shopping, trips abroad.

Thanks to mobile phones, pre-planning social meetings