I’m hearing the same lament from a lot of managers these days; the words and circumstances are different, but it boils down to the same thing—s/he has the knowledge, but doesn’t do anything.

It’s not just younger workers, but all ages.

The current term is “unengaged” and the problem is rampant.

Most managers who call don’t use that term, they complain that people just don’t care. They don’t care about doing more than the minimum; they don’t care about doing great work, instead of just adequate; they don’t care how the company is doing; the list of ‘they don’t care’ goes on and on.

They all see this as a problem with the people they hire.

They ask me where to source good candidates; how to better interview, so they can hire “people who give a damn.”

Some complain that the so-called entitled attitude of Millennials has spread to all ages.

These managers are a disparate group; they come from different industries and range from management newbies to senior executives, but they all have one thing in common.

None of them sees “not giving a damn” as a result of the way they manage, but 98% of the time it is.

So the next time someone you know (or you) complains about people not caring, suggest they ask the only person who really knows the answer—the one they will find in the mirror.

Flickr image credit: antkriz

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

Longtime readers are familiar with my thoughts (rants?) on the prevalence of the entitled mentality in Millennials and its spread to other generations, including the older ones that should know better by now. (If you missed them search “entitled.”)

With that in mind, you’ll understand why a blog post entitled Entitlement vs. Entrepreneurship caught my eye.

The best and possibly only cure for this mentality is to start your own business. You quickly realize that the world doesn’t guarantee you a desk, computer, bad coffee, and a base salary. As an entrepreneur, you don’t start with a golden egg, you go and create it. It’s hard to feel entitled when you don’t have anything.

If the entitled mindset really does change as a result of the Great Recession it might be enough to consider it a silver lining, albeit a sheer one.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/arvindgrover/3219533760/

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

Its studies show that [word deleted] workers are looking for flexible jobs that have “a climate of respect, work-life fit, supervisor support and learning opportunities.”

Would reading this sentence lead you to expect yet another story about the work expectations of Millennials?

If so, you would be wrong.

The sentence comes from a Wharton article called The Silver Tsunami that discusses the value older workers bring to employers.

Now consider these ten points on how to manage from a recent BNET post

1. Don’t be the boss. At least, don’t appear to be
2. Don’t be dismissive, help them learn new skills.
3. Use their experience.
4. Understand differences in lifestyle.
5. Validate them.
6. Know what motivates them.
7. Talk to your employees.
8. Don’t’ be intimidated by them.
9. Introduce a mentorship program…
10. If [word deleted] employees do step out of line, reel them…

Sounds a lot like advice on managing Gen Y, doesn’t it?

But it’s not; it’s advice on how to manage when employees are older than the manager.

Do you see where I’m going here?

Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials.

They are all people; people with similar desires and foibles, although usually expressed in different terms.

And they all want similar things from their managers: respect, challenge, opportunities to grow, work/life balance—the same things you probably want from your boss.

And it’s your job to provide them to everyone.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zedbee/103147140/

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

I don’t have kids, but I have a great interest in education, because I will live out my life in a world run by Millennials and younger. To some extent that is a scary thought, but there are plenty of aMillennials out there, too.

Let’s take a look at the worst idea in higher education—for-profit colleges or perhaps I should say for-profit rip-offs. I first wrote about them April 1, without even noticing the irony of the date, and thought I would share a couple of up-dates today.

There is a perception that operators of for-profit education are devoid of real credibility, but unfortunately, that isn’t true. Kaplan isn’t the largest of the for-profit operators, but its high-profile owner gives it enormous credibility—it is owned by the Washington Post. And the Post is going all out to prevent any kind of regulation or accreditation. Kaplan and the Post and spent $350,000 on lobbying in the third quarter of this year and Chairman Donald Graham is personally lobbying lawmakers.

But over the last few months, Kaplan and other for-profit education companies have come under intense scrutiny from Congress, amid growing concerns that the industry leaves too many students mired in debt, and with credentials that provide little help in finding jobs.

College tuition is going up, student debt is going up and college presidents’ salaries are going up. What do you think? Are they worth their money? (The public survey is coming soon.)

Thirty presidents of private colleges each earned more than $1 million in total compensation in 2008, up from 23 the previous year, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education’s annual salary report.

Last month I told you about a trend for teachers to run schools and the difference it is making.

Here is the story of another school turned around by its teachers.

Test scores are up 18 percent and enrollment has spiked more than 30 percent. The model works, teachers say, because everyone from the principal to the janitor is vested in the outcome. “Everybody has a stake,” said teacher Bruce Newborn. “We all suffer and we all win.”

If you are looking for a different TV show check out School Pride on NBC. Think Extreme Makeover, Home Edition, but for US schools. The schools will make you angry, ill or cry and then lift you up and amaze you. It’s on Friday night at 8 pm Pacific time.

Finally, Bullying is on the upswing and, as everyone knows, empathy is sadly lacking in kids. Enter Roots of Empathy, an educational organization that uses babies to teach empathy to kids.

Since then, Roots has worked with more than 12,600 classes across Canada, and in recent years, the program has expanded to the Isle of Man, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and the United States, where it currently operates in Seattle. Researchers have found that the program increases kindness and acceptance of others and decreases negative aggression.

Be sure to join me Monday to learn how entrepreneurs are taking bullying in the adult world and turning it into a business, much like they did with leadership.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pedroelcarvalho/2812091311/

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

Who do kids follow?

For the last several decades study after study have shown that kids pay more attention to the opinions of their peers than their parents.

More and more they take information and process it on their own.

Sure, their opinions are colored by the MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) of those who raised them, but not necessarily to copy them—sometimes they take the exact opposite position.

When it comes to working there is a belief that Millennials are different from all previous generations.

It’s not so much that what they want in their workplace is different from Boomers and Gen X; it’s that Millennials are more articulate in explaining it, more demanding in receiving it and faster to move if they don’t get it.

Last year I coined a new term, aMillennial, referring to someone who was chronologically of that generation, but without the entitled mentality—it’s the entitlement that irks most people.

In a recent survey new grads talked about staying in their company for 8.9 years, but HR assumes they will leave.

Razor Suleman, the 35-year-old CEO and founder of I Love Rewards, notes that U.S. Department of Labor statistics say most millennials will have 10 jobs by the time they’re 38.

“HR managers turn that around and say. . . . ‘That’s what they’re like,’ ” as if the employees only planned to stay for that long, said Suleman. “They don’t sort of turn it around and say, ‘Hey, wait a second, they wanted to stay 8.9 years and I missed seven years of retention.’ “

Most people look for a job, but hope to find a home.

Think about what you want in your home—great siblings who are interested and willing to help you succeed; great parents who understand that you need to make mistakes to learn and grow, who openly share their knowledge, but don’t expect you to be a carbon copy; who offer ways to stretch yourself with challenging tasks that contribute to the family’s success; a warm, safe physical environment—fancy or not; a fair allowance.

Translated in to workplace terms that’s what all generations want; aMillennials are just more willing to leave home to find it.

“Because if I was in a job that I was paid well, I loved what I was doing, I was empowered to make decisions, I was advancing, why wouldn’t I stay at a company?” — Rob Bianchin, college senior

Image credit: shirleybnz on sxc.hu

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

See all mY generation posts here.

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

I have no idea if George Orwell’s Animal Farm is still required reading, but it should be. In it is one of the most brilliant bits of insight on the human condition ever written; one that is as applicable now as when it was written and will continue to be as long as humans exist. “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”

Many of the quotes you find from Orwell are political, and I skipped those and looked instead for those that I thought applied to the workplace.

If you’re old enough to have watched a few generations grow to adult status you’ll recognize the truth in these words, “Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.” And Orwell said that before the Millennials were even gleams in their grandfathers’ eyes.

In business there is much talk about the importance of vision and how it must be communicated effectively, so that everyone understands. Orwell said, “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” In hindsight, you can see how these feed off each other over and over corrupting the actions that result from the thought and the language.

That kind of corruption can be stopped in its tracks by following another Orwell recommendation, “Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.”

Image credit: PVBroadz on flickr

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

Image credit: Kaarin T on flickr

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

Several years ago I read an article discussing what Gen Y wanted in their workplace. I found it somewhat amusing since the “unique” traits they wanted from work and management weren’t very original; I found the same thing earlier this year and they are the same traits I’ve heard from candidates for better than 30 years—long before Gen Y was thought of, let alone born.

But when I read a Talentbrew post about Gen Y’s attitude towards the recession I was floored—for at least 3 minutes.

While the capable of us have taken on the roles of Gen Xers and Boomers, we’ve likely done it without a raise, or at best, a minimal one.  Put simply, this infuriates us.  Gen Y was given constant positive reinforcement. We had piggy banks full of allowance earned just for making our bed or cleaning our own room.  The worst player on the team was awarded a “Most Improved” trophy.  When the economy changes for the better, we expect to be compensated, handsomely, for our efforts. Or we’ll leave.

How’s that for a sense of entitlement?

I know comments such as this are like waving a red flag in front of a bull, so I sent the link to Jim Gordon.

Jim graduated last June and is in his first job; he draws the Sunday comic mY generation and I often bounce stuff off him to be sure I’m not wildly out in left field.

After thinking it over for a few days, here is Jim’s response.

Alright, after picking through that article, I find it easy to sympathize with the author.

It’s very difficult for me to have any semblance of trust in my employer when I, and everyone around me, is being contracted.

It’s not that turnover is high either, but instead I have this air of uncertainty every day when I walk into work – will today be my last?  Every month or two, I have a new neighbor, though my position has a bit more staying power.

I find it very hard to say I “deserve” something, though.

I feel the author of the article insinuates that he/she deserves much better.  While I agree that often the scale from which our pay is currently derived is, well, off to say the least, I don’t think somehow the definition of “fair play” reflects the same way on society today.

I don’t mean to sound like an underachiever, but really the way one views the economic crisis depends upon how that person was raised.

I don’t agonize over short-term losses (4-5 years), but instead plan for the long-term (10-15).  Build thick skin, know what it’s like to lose, accept denial, appreciate acceptance, and move on in a self-centered direction.
Vanity is one attribute I will defend, which is seen as a flaw of Gen Y.  Assuming we learn from our mistakes, we know what it is like for a market to polarize.  Why?  That’s ALL some of us know.

We were living the life in the 1990′s, but “not much compares to a recession like this.”  That last bit was quoted from, well, everyone.  People who have experienced deep recessions say this, people who haven’t—everyone goes back to the point that this is really one of the worst recessions on record.

You know what, though?  I’m going to survive it and use it as a tool to build a road to where I want to be.  I’m not going to expect 5-star treatment afterward.

I may find another job, but that’s because, like many who have done so before, I want to find something that adds more value to me and my life.

That means I wasn’t taught that the world is an oyster—I was taught that life is tough, and (to quote The Rolling Stones) you can’t always get what you want…

Read the final paragraph in the Talentbrew post to learn what it will take to hire Gen Y in the future.

The only cosmic justice I see here comes from knowing that it is Gen Y’s parents who will be hiring and managing the attitude they raised.

Image credit: KM Photography.. on flickr

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

See all mY generation posts here.

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL