Talking 'bout Y Generation

There are some new kids on the block — and finding the best way to handle them is becoming a preoccupation for a coterie of Baby Boomer CIOs unused to dealing with such impetuous youth.

In executive council meetings and around the water cooler, the hot topic of the day is how to attract and retain a generation more technology savvy, vastly more restless and less programmed for company loyalty than perhaps any generation before.

That's me in the spotlight

I am a product of my generation in many ways.

I had my first computer, an Amiga 500, before I hit puberty. I use my current computer for far more than just work, to the extent that it has become my primary source of entertainment — a one-stop box for social networking, audiovisual stimulation and gaming.

I chose my career path early in life, instead of just falling into one. I chose journalism because it suited my skills and the idea of becoming a hard-nosed muckraker appealed to me, not because of any financial considerations. Money just isn't our primary motivation. Like most members of Generation Y, I'm at the beginning of my professional career.

I have much in common with my Baby Boomer parents. Most members of Gen Y do. But there are fundamental differences in our motivations and our attitudes towards work that upper managers eager to augment their workforce with Gen Y staff would do well to be aware of.

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Moving On Up

A large percentage of Baby Boomers took for granted that they would work for the same company for their entire professional career. Don't expect that kind of loyalty from Gen Y. Many of us have no compunction moving on if we find a more attractive role — or one that suits us better — elsewhere.

"I've got a few Generation Y employees," says Baby Boomer and AGL CIO Cesare Tizi. "If I stand back and say what's the most outstanding thing about Y Generation people, [it] is that they're in an enormous hurry. They are in an enormous hurry to be successful, they're in an enormous hurry to move on and get the things of life that they want, and they have very different values and ethics when it comes to the work environment."

Alfie John, a Gen Y programmer at Mailguard, a Web mail and Internet filtering company, explains the typical Gen Y attitude. "I think my generation is all 'stay in a position for two years and then move on', compared to the loyalty of the other generation," John says.

Anne Parkes, who works in IT at Sydney Airport, agrees. "I do think that we certainly don't have the loyalty to one company, and if we get a better opportunity then we definitely move on," Parkes says.

Of course, this could just be due to our age rather than our generation. Turbulent lifestyles, whether the result of living fast or the by-products of misspent youth, are not unique to Gen Y. Baby Boomer Gulcin Cribb, director of Information Services at Bond University, says that she did the same thing when she was our age. "I just packed my bags and went from one country to another," Cribb says. "I lived in three different countries in four years, and worked in [those] different countries."

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Cribb agrees that Gen Y values stability and job security less than her generation right now, but wonders whether our attitudes might change as we mature. "Will they have the same attitudes? Those guys are 20, 25 now; when they are 30 to 35 they might say: 'I'm not moving any more.' But that's just speculation," Cribb says, although she concedes that even now she changes careers more frequently than most of her Baby Boomer peers.

Of course there are advantages to moving on frequently over the course of a career. For instance, Ben Carmichael, application administrator for Monash University, notes that working in the same position or for the same company limits your potential skill set. "Basically you just don't expand your knowledge of organizations as much as you can if you stay in one spot," Carmichael says.

That said, a willingness to move on is not a universal trait among our generation. According to Daniel Viney, a business systems analyst for the University of Sunshine Coast (USC), there are also disadvantages to changing jobs frequently. "It would be hard to learn the culture of an organization and give yourself the best chance to identify business rules and processes to improve-or-remove if you're jumping around jobs frequently," says Viney, who has no plans to change employers in the near future. "It's important to hold down the same job long enough to actually gain knowledge and experience from it and also to be able to provide some form of positive 'return' for the business."

Nevertheless, there is a fundamental difference in the attitudes of our generation about employer loyalty and job fluidity. But despite our willingness to move on and our eagerness to move up, few of us have any specific occupational goals. Of course, this could just be due to our youth and the fact that our fledgling careers are just beginning.

However, there are factors that will make Gen Y employees more likely to stay.

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New Attitude

Thanks to the Baby Boomers, Gen Y is blessed with more opportunities than any generation preceding us. We also have more career paths open to us.

Louise Busiia, a programmer at the University of Ballarat, says that being granted these opportunities has changed our attitudes about where we should work. "I think that past generations work because they had to," she says. "I guess our generation probably [chooses to] work in areas because they want to. We don't want to do the jobs that no one else wants to do."

Many of us also share a different attitude towards work itself. Carmichael believes that Gen Y has a more relaxed attitude towards work. "I think that we see it as work is not the be-all and end-all of a life," he says. "You aren't born to work and you don't work until you die. You go to work until you get to a point where you're happy to leave work and then you retire early and you take advantage of what you've got."

We also place a far greater importance on job satisfaction. First and foremost, we have to enjoy what we do. Kylie Jenkins, who works in a management position at the federal Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST), explains. "It's definitely important to enjoy your work because you're spending a majority of your life at work," she says.

For Andrew Curro, an analyst and programmer at DEST, job satisfaction is a major factor in the decision to keep working in a position. "Certainly I'd have to be enjoying what I'm doing," he says, "otherwise I'd be looking for something else at this stage." Carmichael feels the same way. "I think it's not worth doing a job unless you enjoy it," he says.

By this we do not mean we need to be kept constantly entertained. We just want jobs that provide challenging, rewarding tasks to fulfil. "I always need a challenge. I don't like to get sucked into the routine stuff a bit too much," says Derek Cooper, a Learning and Development consultant at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane. "If something isn't satisfying me, then I'll look around and try to move on." Sydney Airport's Parkes has actually changed the focus of her career to IT because her previous job left her lacking. "I wasn't challenged doing accounting," she says.

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It is also good to be able to feel you are making a change. This can be as simple as feeling like you are able to tweak company practices. Andrew Matheson, an admin/programmer at the University of Ballarat, describes how frustrating it is, for example, to be forced to work with buggy third-party systems without being able to make improvements to the code. "When you're on stuff that you can't fix and can't change it's not very rewarding," he says. "You have to feel like you're making a change, making it better."

Or sometimes these aspirations of change can be nobler. "I walked around the [University of Ballarat] health faculty a year ago and looked at some of the things the researchers were doing — looking at curing heart problems and things like that," Matheson says. "It gives you a bit of a warm feeling where you're able to be a part [however small] of the whole process where lives get saved in the future."

Gen Y values job satisfaction very highly. Many of us rate it higher than salary or wages. James Bernard, a Web developer at Monash University, explains why. "If you're earning big bucks and being stressed," he says, "coming home stressed, feeling bad working long hours every day, and outside of work life is suffering as well, I think the easy choice is to change so you're enjoying what you're doing."

The more down-to-earth of us realize big wads of cash can go a way towards taking the sting out of being lumbered with an unsatisfying job. Matt Bailey, Web information officer and a member of the Information Technology Services (ITS) team at QUT, is one such pragmatist. "If I were offered a job that was less satisfying for a significantly larger amount of money I might consider that," he says. But Bailey still considers job enjoyment to be more important. "Generally," he says, "it's job satisfaction for me over the actual cash."

Others do not care how big the carrot being dangled in front of their face is, if it means working a stressful, unsatisfying job. Matheson sums up this attitude nicely. If the job is satisfying, he says, "I don't give a shit about money. As long as I can pay the bills and buy little extra things that I want, I'm quite happy. I mean, I drive a Kingswood for Christ's sake."

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Working for the Weekend

Just as Gen Y is determined to enjoy the work experience, we also see the importance of a satisfying home and social life.

Bailey has a simple technique for dealing with "the old work/life balance", as he calls it. "I guess for me I do try to make a definite line that I'm not going to take work home or bring anything from work outside to my social life," he says. Mailguard's John has the same attitude. "Leave everything at work come five o'clock," he says. "Don't take anything home with you."

Many of us have had the importance of keeping a work/life balance stressed to us since the beginning of our adult lives. I remember the orientation ceremony of my very first day of university. We were addressed by a surprisingly relaxed looking vice-chancellor, who made it clear that while study was important, it should not take absolute precedence over a social life. It was just as important to unwind now and again.

Some employers stress the same thing, including Carmichael's employer, although perhaps being a university environment, that's not too surprising. "At school it was always, 'Don't get over-involved in study, make sure you think about a social life'," he says. "And it was the same when I started working here. The attitude was: Work/life balance is very important. Make sure you take regular leave. And, if you need to access services like counselling, then they're available. I think that approach is being promoted very heavily."

Because Gen Y knows the importance of maintaining a work/life balance, we value flexible work hours very highly. Just giving us the ability to work an eight-hour day some time between the hours of 8.00am and 6.00pm goes a long way towards promoting job satisfaction.

QUT's Cooper is grateful his job offers flexible work times. "My work hours are very flexible, and that's important to me," he says. "So within reason I can start when I get into the office." He says he has worked previously in a position that had rostered work hours and break times, "and it wasn't too much fun".

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Workplace policies, like flex-time, are also highly rated. USC's Viney agrees a flex-time policy is important to him. "It just allows you to do all the important stuff you need to do that normal, very set working hours, stop you from doing," he says. "As long as you make those hours up by the end of the week, you're pulling your weight. If your absence doesn't affect the ongoing operation of the business, then I think it's pretty important to allow staff to be able to go do those things."

There are advantages to offering flexible working hours. "It helps keep employees happier in the workplace," Cooper says, "because there's less stress associated [with] ensuring you get all those other things to do with your home life sorted outside of or around the nine to five schedule."

One reason John left a developer position at Monash University for his current job is that the new one offers him far more flexibility, and not just in work hours. In his new position he will work from home.

Then again, some Baby Boomers are beginning to reach similar conclusions, showing some may have more in common with their youngest employees than they previously imagined.

"I've got two girls, one of 16 and the other just on 20, and in this later stage of my career I look at that and I say, well, I want more time," AGL's Tizi says. "I've got the money, I've got the recognition, got the good job and everything else but now I haven't got the time. And now I begin to realize that if I don't balance my time better, I miss out on an important part of life. The problem is, I realized that late in my career while Gen Y is realizing that early."

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Keep On Keeping On

Whether showing up to work means walking into the lounge room or commuting to an office, there must be something to inspire Gen Y-ers to stay on the job. So other than keeping the pay cheques coming in, what motivates us to keep working?

For the large part, our motivations are all the factors that keep our jobs satisfying: the challenge of difficult work and the satisfaction that comes with a job well done. Matheson says his biggest motivation is "the end goal . . . just to see particular jobs get finished. I like to see things finished".

Viney says that the challenge involved with problem solving is what keeps him going. "Each day presents a range of little problems that you need to try and resolve for your client base," he says. "I get a lot of satisfaction out of fixing a problem and drastically fixing it so it doesn't continue in the future."

Carmichael says his three main motivations are "to enjoy myself, to expand my knowledge of people, places and things, and to basically provide the best possible service that I can".

More practically, Gen Y-ers are motivated by the need to get things done. A little pressure can indeed be a good thing. Just as rating job satisfaction highly doesn't mean we need to be kept constantly entertained, it also doesn't mean we need, or even want, an entirely stress-free job.

"Maybe deadlines and pressure are the things that motivate us the most," Monash's Bernard says.

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So What?

So that's my generation. We're just as motivated and eager as the Baby Boomers. We're ambitious, even though few of us have any specific career goals. But we also have fundamentally different attitudes towards work.

We don't see work as the only important thing in life. We see the idea of working nine to five in an office as outmoded. The traditional concept of working for one company until we retire seems just as antiquated. We place greater emphasis on enjoying ourselves at work. We like to be challenged and we like to feel the satisfaction of a job well done. It's what keeps us showing up.

Perhaps our views will change as we mature. Or perhaps they are views that will remain with us and influence our decisions when we take our turn as the generation at the top of the corporate ladder.

Sidebar: The Y's and Wherefores of Retention

Successful strategies for managing tech-savvy Gen Y employees

Many employers remain in the dark about the best ways to motivate and retain Gen Y employees but help is on the way.

US-based consulting firm the Concours Institute has begun a research project — named Project YE — into the best way to recruit and retain Gen Y staff. Concours has also written a book that addresses the topic, entitled Workforce Crisis. Concours president Tamara Erickson says employers can appeal to Gen Y's desire for flexibility by developing "project-based work opportunities. Many Y's would prefer to work on an episodic basis. We call it 'cyclic work'," she says.

Erickson also has some suggestions for managing this generation's desire to move on — she suggests they be given their wish. "Move people laterally, and with greater frequency than in past models," she says. "Y's like variety and it promotes learning."

She also stresses the importance of keeping Gen Y challenged. Any position offered to Gen Y staff should "offer significant learning opportunities", and employers would do well to "promote these heavily as part of the recruiting process".

According to Concours, another challenge associated with working with Gen Y staff is that they are often assisted by what the institute calls "helicopter parents". These parents are constantly hovering around their children and are always on hand to offer career advice from a more experienced perspective.

Erickson recommends that employers should strive to incorporate these parents into the recruitment process. "You can't fight them, so make them part of your process," she says. "Anticipate their questions and make sure your offer letters outline the types of things they will be interested in (benefits, learning). Some companies are even directing their recruiting toward the parents: 'Why we would be a great company for your child to choose'."

An editorial from consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton's strategy+business magazine concentrates on the inevitable gap in technological savvy between Gen Y employees and their Baby Boomer bosses. "Smart managers would do well to pay attention to what this technologically savvy generation has to offer," Booz Allen Hamilton says. "If consulted, these young employees can be an enormous force for positive change and success in their companies. If ignored, they will doubtless spend their brain cycles on the job plotting how to make their own work lives, not their companies, better."

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Some major companies see huge value in a generation of technologically savvy employees. Former CEO of General Electric Jack Welch once made that company's top 1000 managers become temporary proteges of the youngest GE employees.

And according to Booz Allen Hamilton, "Microsoft now sees the role of its managers as 'clearing obstacles from the paths' chosen by its young programmers who carry the firm's future products in their heads".

CMS specialist Bryan Ruby recommends this form of top-down management. His workplace recently revamped its operating processes, he writes on his blog, CMS Report. "The restructuring," he says, "did not originate from either management or senior staff, but from the youngest office employees [bottom-up management]."

The restructuring incorporated technological innovations Gen Y employees are comfortable with. "Technology was introduced to display images from individual workstations to larger screens so that other staff members are able to observe and provide input," Ruby says, "and instant messaging internal to the agency was introduced, which allowed for peers from surrounding field offices hundreds of miles away to join in the collaboration and decision-making process."

Ideally, then, managers looking to best utilize Gen Y employees should not be threatened by their ambition and technological savvy. Instead, managers should incorporate Gen Y's unique talents into the operation of their organization, even if it means temporarily turning their corporation's entire organizational structure on its head.

Bottom-down management like this is guaranteed to help with retention of Gen Y staff, for what better way is there to feel like you are making a change within your organization?

- D BUSHELL-EMBLING

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Sidebar: The Baby Boomers Are Listening

Don't feel threatened by Gen Y workers — learn how to get the best from them

Some Baby Boomers from the echelons of upper management are aware of the different perspectives of their young Generation Y staff. A few have begun adapting their policies to cater for their desires.

Michael Ackerman, enterprise architect and principal consultant of US company Comsworld, says he and some colleagues have some ideas to improve staff retention among Gen Y. For example, paying bonuses quarterly rather than yearly is expected to give a sense of more immediate satisfaction.

Ackerman also suggests incorporating technologies Gen Y is comfortable with, such as instant messaging, into the work environment. Likewise, in a recent post to her blog EXCELER8ion.com, Shannon Seery Gude stressed the importance of engaging in "social networking features and collaboration tools such as blogs and wikis to allow employees to connect and collaborate with one another".

However, Ackerman says management should also be aware that Gen Y is constantly searching for better opportunities. As such, managers should "always have a succession plan and don't be disappointed when they leave; it is not personal".

PhD candidate Sarah Sharf says employers should consider beginning recruitment at an earlier stage, by recruiting people who do not have the necessary qualifications but training them until they do. "If you are willing to provide training and advancement," Sharf says, "you will get a larger measure of loyalty in return."

Cesare Tizi, CIO at AGL, says companies that want to retain Gen Y employees should provide them with the flexibility they desire. "They want enormous flexibility in their time, they want to work from home as much as possible, and some companies embrace that. IBM are a good example, they have embraced it."

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In his recent address to the Press Club in Canberra, IBM Australia's CEO and managing director Glen Boreham mentioned that nearly all of the company's 10,000 employees work from home at least one day a week. "The very nature of work is changing," Boreham said, and in the future working from home may become the rule, not the exception.

Peter Gasparovic, CIO of Mission Australia, says that Gen Y craves flexibility for more than just where and when they do their job. "What works for this group best are things like flexibility in the way they go about doing their job," Gasparovic says. "Giving them the flexibility to not necessarily follow procedure, but say to them: 'Look, this is the policy, how would you go about doing this?' Actually using them to brainstorm and go through the processes or procedures that were in place and say: 'How can we do it better?'"

Gasparovic says an employee asked him for six months of unpaid leave for an extended visit to the UK. He granted the request, and even though everyone thought he had gone bananas, he is happy to have made it. Not only did the employee come back from the UK bursting at the seams with new ideas, Gasparovic says, "he was so grateful for the opportunity he was given, I think I have won his loyalty forever".

According to freelance mobile analyst Nigel Deighton, if Gen Y employees are any less loyal, it may be their bosses' fault. "Most established companies expect loyalty but don't earn it," he says. "I'm stunned by the number of organizations that treat their trash cans with more consideration than their people. And then management gets a little upset because a person in which they have invested time, money, effort and training quits to move ahead."

Deighton says that corporations seeking to improve staff loyalty should try to customize staff members' roles to fit the skills and interests of individual employees. "Take the entrepreneur who made a good idea fly and then got bored with the dross of day-to-day operations," he says. "Wouldn't it make more sense for the company to put a process guy in place once the outcome is decided and focus the entrepreneur on the next new task?"

There are clear challenges involved with hiring and retaining Gen Y employees. But they are challenges that are likely to drive workplace innovation and improve communication between employees, even if face-to-face communication decreases.

"Like most things in life, you need the people to challenge you occasionally," Tony Newman, general manager of Information Systems at Mitsubishi Motors Australia, says. "While at the time, you might resent it, you do realize that you do need to be continually challenged."

- D BUSHELL-EMBLING