From Ypulse.com

Below is an interview I did with Anastasia Goodstein who manages the Ypulse website.

Anastasia:
It’s time for another book giveaway. This time it’s a business book called Millennial Leaders: Success Stories from Today’s Most Brilliant Generation Y Leaders. I was pleasantly surprised to see some familiar faces interviews including Dr. Jean Twenge (who just confirmed she will be speaking at the Ypulse College Mashup), Ben Casnocha (also interviewed on Ypulse), and our friend DK at MediaSnackers over in the UK. I did a quick email interview with one of the authors, Scott K. Wilder, below. Some of the characteristics given seem applicable to more than just this generation and could apply to any entrepreneur in my mind (just my two cents). We’re giving three copies away to the first three commenters who answer the question: What do you think the biggest challenge is for managing Millennials @ work?

Ypulse: What criteria did you use to choose the leaders featured in the book?

Scott K. Wilder: Leaders were chosen via word of mouth. We allowed individuals to recommend who should be interviewed for the book by submitting names to our website. We also researched extensively a number of young leaders and influencers by reading local and national newspapers, and by reviewing blogs and websites.

YP: What were some common themes related to this generation that emerged for you in writing the book?

SW: Common themes include:

Generation Y’s Goals:
- Achieve recognition and respect for their efforts
- An interesting, eclectic and diverse network of support
- Authenticity and bold self expression (Let me be more of me)
- Balance
- Engage people in their conversations about what’s meaningful
- Fabulous career
- Flexibility in life and career
- Freedom to work for a company and own an own a small business
- Instant gratification
- Live first, work second
- Make a contribution to the workplace, community and the world
- Meaningful work
- Rich and rewarding life experiences
- To be in control of their choices, career and lifestyle
- To see what’s possible

Gen Y’s Challenges:
- Anxiety and stress to perform/achieve
- Choosing a great place to live first and work second
- Difficulty speaking in public
- Helicopter parents are preventing independence
- Isolation and loneliness
- Managing unrealistic expectations (I can do it all, be it all!)
- Networking face to face
- Overwhelmed

Values:
- Authenticity
- Balance
- Challenge
- Diversity
- Flexibility
- Freedom
- Friendship
- Sustainability
- To be heard and valued
- World Peace

Characteristics of Gen Y Entrepreneurs
- They challenge the status quo
- They cherish creativity and imagination more than rule-following
- They are not afraid to take risks
- They are relentlessly optimistic
- They are non-stop experimenters. They like having side projects
- They love “building stuff”
- They accept — sometimes enjoy — uncertainty, chaos, and randomness

Newsletter readers: Visit Ypulse.com for the rest of this interview.

YP: What is the biggest misperception people from older generations have about Gen Y?

SW: There are so many, I am not sure where to begin. The most common one is that they are slackers, that they are lazy, that they are unmotivated. I find they are extremely engaged in their work, but unlike the Baby Boomer generation, they do not live to work. They live to live, and want to make sure that they take plenty of time to smell the roses (my words). The want to learn, to buiild, take risks, and make sure their work has meaning. If they can find these things, they will perform many great things in the work place I absolutely love their energy! And working with them.

YP: What was your favorite anecdote or moment in the book?

SW: Maybe I like this story because it about a Gen Yer who grew up in the Bay Area where I live. Ben Casnocha who at the age of 12 created a website that linked constituents with government officials who could answer their question. After receiving recognition from his community and government, 2 years later, at the age of 14, he founded Comcate, an e-government software company. Today, Ben is 19 and continues to be a successful entrepreneur.

YP: Who should read this book and why?

SW: The following people can benefit from the book:
- Executive and Business Coaches
- Teachers, Professors and athletic coaches
- Parents
- Business Leaders
- Baby Boomers
- Gen Yers

The book provides insight into how to work with Gen Y and highlights Gen Y’s strengths as individuals. For corporate leaders, the book provides insights on how to attract and retail Gen Yers. For Gen Yers, it provides advice on how to be successful in the world. The key aspect of the book is that it consists of interviews with Gen Y and each chapter highlights 5 key “Points of Reflection.” Generation Y young adults are our future, and it is time for us to start working with them…not resisting their efforts. Gen Y is the true greatest generation. They are
productive, loyal, creative, inquisitive and learners.

YP: Anything else you want to add?

SW: The people who have been tagged as “Gen Y” — the generation between the ages of 18 and 30 — are making a tremendous impact on today’s culture. Their entrepreneurial prowess and adventurous spirit has spawned countless successes in business. This generation has grown up with more technological advances than any prior group. They process information in a unique manner. They have a distinctive way of managing their interests, their businesses, and their lives. And their power is a force to be reckoned with.

Posted by anastasia

Points of reflection from the article below:

• Training is always good (there can never be too much :  ) but make sure the training fits the workforces needs.. don’t cookie cutter research

• Make sure your employees personality, lifestyle fits in with your corporate culture.

• If employees are quitting, find out why — interview them

• Use the web (or read our book :  ) about how Gen Y is being trained and learning

• Hands on learning is great — but don’t make leanring a last resort or a desperate approach

• “Technology - enhanced hands-on learning”

The making of a UPS driver

When Big Brown found that its twentysomething drivers were flunking out in droves, it had a serious problem on its hands: how to train Generation Y for a hard blue-collar job. The company created a whole new approach - and it doesn’t involve videogames.



By Nadira A. Hira, Fortune writer

November 7 2007: 9:06 AM EST

(Fortune Magazine) — It’s 9:45 A.M., and at 93 degrees and 1,000% humidity, Saddle Brook, N.J., feels more like the Serengeti than suburbia. I’m in a doorless truck, wearing high-waisted shorts, facing a day full of handcarts and heavy boxes. When I arose at 5:45 this morning - an hour I haven’t seen the daytime side of since … ever - the day had something of the adventurous about it. Like more of my Generation Y peers than one might expect, I’d never worn a uniform, or even properly nine-to-fived it for that matter, and here at last was my chance.

UPS would soon fix me, though. At 8:15, after touring the huge open warehouse of concrete and conveyor belts that is UPS’s Saddle Brook center, I met Vincent “Vinny” Plateroti, a UPS “driver service provider,” or DSP - that’s UPS for driver - of 21 years and my escort for the day. At 8:45, we attended the “pre-work communications meeting,” or PCM - UPS for morning meeting - which included reports from the previous day and a short but detailed lecture on hydration.

At 9, Plateroti walked me to his “package car” - UPS for truck - and performed his daily “Z-scan,” a Z-shaped once-over of the sides and front of the vehicle, culminating in a good kick to each tire and a signed form for the automotive department confirming everything was in order.

At 9:08, he demonstrated “three points of contact” - UPS for stepping off the truck - with a hand holding the handrail, one foot on the package-car step, and one foot on the ground below, to minimize impact on the ankles. (This would come up approximately 256 more times during the course of my weeks with UPS.)

And at 9:10, I got a look at the “delivery information acquisition device,” or DIAD - UPS for electronic clipboard - which is GPS-enabled, plans drivers’ routes, records all their deliveries, and is said to rival the iPhone in capability. When we pull out of the lot, the huge red numbers on the UPS-branded outdoor digital clock - which, in the UPS dictionary, might be under “idol” - read 9:16.

In the half-hour since then, the real job’s begun, and my verve has, to put it nicely, ended. Wide-open doors are not a pleasant, rugged alternative to air-conditioning, and what UPSers call “walking at a brisk pace” to deliver packages would induce wheezing in even the most seasoned city walker. We’ve only delivered to one location, and already I am sweaty, tired, and wondering how exactly I’m going to make it through a whole day of this torture. And if Plateroti spouts one more abbreviation at me, well, this might just turn into a different sort of ride-along.

For those of you who want to slap me, not to worry, I’m with you. Barely an hour into my job safari and I’m acting like a big spoiled 26-year-old baby.

The old man of the industry

But such is the Gen Y reaction to what one academic described as a “plum blue-collar job.” (UPS drivers make an average of $75,000 a year, plus an average of $20,000 in health-care benefits and pension, well above the norm for comparable positions at other freight carriers.) Much derided as a group of upstart technophiles of little work ethic and even less loyalty, Gen Yers aren’t exactly a perfect fit for Big Brown. In fact, it’s hard to imagine a worse match.

For decades this company, which last year had $47.5 billion in revenue, has relied on “human engineering” - strictly timed routines, rote memorization, even uniform appearance, going so far as to mandate short hair and outlaw beards - to distinguish itself. (And just in case you thought they weren’t hip to the times, there’s even a policy on piercings and tattoos: one stud in each ear at most for both men and women, and a ban on tattoos visible during deliveries.)

Though UPS (Charts, Fortune 500) has adapted over time, it’s that human aspect that has continued to make the business successful. Here, you don’t just pick up a package any old way. You take 15.5 seconds to carry out “selection,” the prescribed 12-step process that starts with parking the vehicle and ends when you step off the package car, delivery in hand. It’s all laid out in UPS’s “340 methods” - a detailed manual of rules and routines that, until now, was taught to UPS’s legions of driver candidates in two weeks of lectures.

But if there’s one group that isn’t down to be engineered, it’s Generation Y, people who can’t even be bothered to use punctuation, let alone memorize anything.

The inevitable discord started to show in 2003, when the oldest Gen Yers were in their mid-20s. UPS senior staffers began to notice a serious decline in some major performance indicators, among them drivers’ time to proficiency. Before, trainees had needed an average of 30 days to become proficient drivers; the younger group was taking 90 to 180 days.

Perhaps more disturbing, the number of new drivers quitting the post after 30 to 45 days on the job spiked. That was cause for serious alarm. Gen Yers make up over 60% of the company’s part-time loader workforce, from which it draws the majority of new driver hires. And in the next five years, to keep the more than 100,000 driving jobs that currently exist filled, the company will need to train up to 25,000 new drivers.

So did UPS bow to demographic pressure and abandon its 340 methods? It did not. Instead, the company is attempting to change how they’re taught, embarking on a management-training project the likes of which few in corporate America - or Generation Y, for that matter - have ever seen.

On Sept. 17, UPS opened its first-ever full-service pilot training center, a $34 million, 11,500-square-foot, movie-set-style facility in Landover, Md., aimed directly at young would-be drivers and known as Integrad. The facility and curriculum have been shaped over three years by more than 170 people, including UPS executives, professors and design students at Virginia Tech, a team at MIT, forecasters at the Institute for the Future, and animators at an Indian company called Brainvisa.

Because Stephen Jones - a former driver who heads training for UPS and is Integrad’s project manager - received a $1.8 million grant from the Department of Labor, much of the project data, including the research related to safety and generational differences, will be made public. That information could prove useful across industries - especially for companies that, lacking UPS’s almost obsessive penchant for measuring things, may just be starting to see this new generation’s impact.

In the course of his “light” eight-hour day with me, Plateroti made 80 stops to deliver 200 packages and picked up 70 more from 20 locations. That’s one stop every 4.2 minutes, 100 climbs on and off the package car, 100 walks to and from the buildings, and well over 100 smiling calls of “Hello? UPS!” (which, incidentally, is not just a courtesy; announcing your presence in a firm but cheerful voice inspires some urgency in customers).

That’s no small job. And as it’s grown - morphing from a straightforward affair of maps and manual labor into a knowledge position, complete with high visibility, advanced technology, and brutal deadlines (the day’s first premium packages must be delivered by 10:30 A.M., and if they aren’t, the DIAD knows) - drivers have remained at the core of UPS’s business. Most senior managers at the company have at one time or another been a UPS driver - including CEO Mike Eskew, who by his own chuckling admission “wasn’t very good at it.”

 

Even when upstart Federal Express (Charts, Fortune 500) began aggressively adopting new technology in the 1970s and 1980s, UPS stubbornly stood by its human engineering strategy, spending years in R&D before introducing the DIAD. This is a company that’s incredibly stuck in its ways. But despite being the old man of the industry, the world’s largest package-delivery company has stayed competitive, delivering an average of over 15 million packages a day - twice as many as FedEx.

The rivalry with FedEx - which posted $35.2 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2007 and has led in the express-delivery category since it debuted the service in the 1970s - continues to drive innovation. Since UPS went public in 1999, however, its stock has been something of a disappointment - rising just 50% to $75 from an initial offering price of $50. And though it has struggled with labor issues over the years - it took a 15-day Teamsters union strike in 1997 - this September the company reached a tentative five-year agreement with the union that reportedly will raise Teamsters’ pay and benefits.

Big brown

The driver job isn’t just lucrative, it’s also sexy - at least according to the Wall Street Journal, which in 1995 declared, “In the UPS Man, Some Women Find a Complete Package … Oh, Those Brown Duds.”

The UPS story began in 1907, when a teenager named Jim Casey founded the American Messenger Co. as a bicycle messenger service with his friend Claude Ryan and a $100 loan from Ryan’s uncle. A merger in 1913 shifted the Seattle company’s focus from messenger services to home delivery, and when Seattle’s leading department stores became clients, having a brown car from the renamed Merchants Parcel Delivery pull up to one’s home became a sign of status. (Brown was chosen for its dirt-disguising properties.)

Once the company expanded down the West Coast, it began offering common-carrier services to the public, putting it in direct competition with the U.S. Postal Service. To manage the increased volume, the company introduced its first conveyor-belt system in 1924.

Expansion continued until, in 1975, UPS became the first package-delivery company to serve the entire continental U.S. In the 1990s the focus turned to new technology: The DIAD, introduced in 1991, is now in its fourth generation; UPS’s fleet of jets is the world’s eighth-largest airline; the company’s “preload assist system,” or PAS, automates its meticulous loading process.

Casey, the founder, never married, and just two months before his death in 1983 he attended a UPS board meeting. UPS people at all levels quote him so often it’s funny. “You can’t be a big person until you’ve shown competence as a small one,” a staffer tells me, reciting a line from a pamphlet Casey wrote in 1958 called “Determined Men.” Both DSP Plateroti and CEO Eskew have noted nonchalantly that in 1956, Casey told UPSers to be “constructively dissatisfied.”

Casey’s words even serve as art in UPS’s Atlanta headquarters - itself a museum-cum-shrine since the company moved there in 1991 - where a glass wall reads, “Our horizon is as distant as our mind’s eye wishes it to be.” The building’s lobby features a brown Model T Ford, a replica of the original “package car,” so named because when the company began making deliveries, trucks didn’t exist. (Later, when trucks appeared on the scene, the company kept the package-car moniker because it didn’t like the sound of “truck driver,” according to UPS’s archivist.)

“UPS culture is hard to describe,” says Eskew, who recently announced he’ll be leaving in January, having completed the five-year tenure that’s become customary for UPS CEOs, and will be succeeded by CFO Scott Davis. “But when you walk in here, you can feel it. We all realize we’re part of something bigger than ourselves, and I think that crosses generations. It speaks to everybody.”

A hands-on approach

When Stephen Jones began examining the problem of training the untrainable Gen Yers back in 2003, he didn’t have much to go on. The numbers told him that the company’s existing training program wasn’t working, and the popular media seemed to be saying that gaming was the answer. That, Jones thought, was the way this new generation learned, so he enlisted Francis “Skip” Atkinson, a former professor of instructional technology at Georgia State University, to do a full literature review - a step for which there’s usually no time or money in corporate settings - and conduct focus groups with UPS employees. “We thought we were going to design a bunch of videogames,” Jones says. “Then the research came back, and we did a complete 180.”

What Atkinson’s team uncovered in focus groups with Gen Y employees was surprising in its simplicity. “To a person, they said give me hands-on,” Atkinson says. “They liked the interaction with the computer, but they didn’t like learning from it necessarily. We found out very quickly that a lot of the studies out there had been done with a very select audience - college-bound, usually white, in affluent suburbs, able to afford these electronic toys - and that had nothing to do with the part-time loaders coming up through the organization at UPS.”

But the most profound problem, according to Atkinson, was the disconnect between part-timers’ expectations about the driver position and the reality of the job. New hires had so limited an understanding of the demands of driving for UPS that, once on the road, they were practically shocked into failure. They needed what would come to be known among Integrad insiders as “technology-enhanced hands-on learning.” So UPS enlisted the help of Virginia Tech, sending two managers to the university for a year and a half to help design students there turn Atkinson’s recommendations into a training program.

Situated in an industrial park across the street from the area UPS center, the Integrad warehouse doesn’t look like much from the outside. But just inside the door is a sight that’s at once familiar and surreal: a transparent UPS package car, complete with rows of (weighted) packages inside. Its incongruous surroundings - close yellow walls and gray linoleum floor - only underscore its big-toy appeal.

But its purpose is far from silly. Selection is the most fundamental part of a UPS driver’s job, and yet it can seem impossible when you’re staring into the gaping back door of a package car, desperately trying to figure out where your five packages are and how you’re going to get them out in the 65.5 seconds Jim Casey and his heartless minions have allotted you. It’s a lot to grasp in a lecture. But being able to watch an instructor demonstrate this selection process in an actual package car - with the same shelving system, odd-sized packages, and cramped space drivers have on-road - and getting the chance to try it yourself before your first trip out could make all the difference.

The same goes for the 340 methods (there are actually many more than 340 by now, but the name endures). These are so specific that they include everything from where to get gas - waiting for a station on the right side of the street reduces idling time and is safer than turning into oncoming traffic - to which finger to carry your keys on (hooking them on the ring finger puts the key in position for your index finger and thumb to turn it in the ignition and pull it out in one motion). It may seem fussy, but when Jones, the director, who is less than svelte, pirouettes through the motions, he is transformed by his muscle memory into a veritable Fred Astaire.

Down the line, another package car is equipped with force sensors in its handrail, in its bottom step, and on a large plate on the ground below. In a job as physical as a UPS driver’s is - he must be able to “continuously lift and lower packages that range up to 70 pounds each … while ‘unloading’ at a rate of 800 to 1,300 packages per hour and while ‘loading’ at a rate of 500 to 800 packages per hour,” says a casual list of essential job functions - one of the most difficult things to teach young Supermen is how frail their bodies really are. Grow lax with your three points of contact and you can be sure you’ll be growing old - with a hobble and a cane - before your time. And what better way to show that than with a computer-generated force diagram? Students take a few hops off the truck with and without the handrail, and immediately, they can see a representation of the impact on their bodies.

It’s elaborate, but Jones and his colleagues have come to believe it’s also essential. Because the young people they’re trying to train aren’t just Generation Y, they’re Generation Why? - a tribe of disbelievers who’ve learned to question absolutely everything. And they need the obstacle course of Integrad not because they won’t take notes in a lecture but because without these demonstrations they may not believe a word of what they hear.

It’s an idea probably best embodied by the lift-and-lower simulator, a series of cameras in the cab of another package car arranged to capture trainees’ posture as they lift and lower packages. These images are saved on a digital video recorder for later review. “The thing about young people is that they’re never wrong,” says Jones. “Tell them what they did incorrectly, and they’ll tell you, ‘I didn’t do that. You saw wrong.’ This way we’ve got it on tape and they can see it for themselves.”

The final kinetic-learning module - or for non-academicians, hands-on learning tool - is the crowd-favorite slip-and-fall simulator. UPS incurs significant costs every year from slips and falls, and it is first-year drivers who succumb the most. Lucky for first-years then that Thurmon Lockhart, director of the Locomotion Research Laboratory at Virginia Tech, has devoted his entire life to the issue. In his studies Lockhart has found that the only way to help people avoid falling is to “perturb” them - i.e., to put them through the motions of falling - which causes their bodies to adjust during subsequent encounters with falling hazards.

To that end, Lockhart’s lab houses a falling machine - a nine-foot-high metal frame with a body harness attached to it. A subject puts on the harness and gets comfortable walking back and forth, and then someone sneaks up behind her and spills soapy water, causing the subject to slip, scream, and flail around before getting caught by the harness. It sounds funny - until you wipe out.

For the record, having experienced this first-hand, I was perturbed, and my gait remains adjusted. “This type of research has been going on since the 1920s,” Lockhart says, “but UPS is going to be the first to apply it. And when their guys get out of the program, they’ll almost be ergonomists. The training is that good.” Now there’s a shiny new brown version of the simulator at the training center.

There is, of course, also driving done at Integrad. An outdoor parking lot - called the integration station - has been turned into a mini-town where trainees can put what they’ve learned into practice. There are real street and stop signs, a toy house and toy stores, a UPS dropbox, and even a loading dock, which was being cemented into the ground during my tour. Trainees will travel these streets every afternoon, with tasks increasing in difficulty each day, and facilitators and fellow trainees standing in as customers to test them on the finer points of customer service.

And while there aren’t any videogames in the Integrad curriculum per se, there sure are a lot of screens. Students log in to watch animated demonstrations of tasks, take quizzes on what they’ve learned, and conduct simulations with special teaching DIADs connected via Bluetooth. And in true mechanical UPS fashion, they get … scores! Every piece of data - from a student’s performance on a particular module to comments from his facilitator - is stored in a new database tool developed by Virginia Tech design students. It will continue to map trainees’ progress once they become drivers, and it’s customized for each level of the UPS hierarchy, so that a region manager can log on for general stats about his districts’ performance, and a supervisor meeting a new driver for the first time will already know every single possible thing there is to know about him.

The pilot program began with 24 students and five facilitators. Each session runs for five days, for a total of 48 hours, and there will be nine more sessions this year before the company begins to tabulate the data. All involved can’t stop stressing that this is only a pilot, but if it’s deemed to be a success - which, for the determined Jones, would mean a 15% reduction in accidents by first-year drivers and a 20% reduction in injuries for the same group -work will begin on 14 more sites around the country.

In the long run, the hope is that young drivers will begin to learn what dispatch supervisor and former DSP Veronica Reisinger calls “the why.” “A lot of people outside of the organization don’t fully understand how much work it is, how quick we have to be, how much we have to know,” the 29-year-old says. “I learned my methods, but I just kind of memorized them and could spout them off. I don’t think I fully understood them until I got on the road. I didn’t get the ‘why.’”

Learning from the legends

For all that can be learned from the hands-on and technology-enhanced, the best place for Yers to learn the “why” may ultimately be from - horror of horrors - their older baby-boomer and World War II-era teachers.

“Yers have a great appreciation of reputation and expertise,” says Tamara Erickson, president of the Concours Institute research firm. “To the extent they can hear from a person who’s done it for 30 years, and hear what worked for him or her, they respond to that. And if there’s someone who’s legendary - a god of drivers, say - even better.”

This afternoon’s legend-in-residence at Integrad is Don Petersik, a tall older gentleman with a ready smile and firm handshake. Petersik is set to retire in January, and his last assignment as the company’s star facilitator is to train the facilitators at Integrad. The assembled UPSers ask him to tell me a story, and he obliges. Long ago, when he was just a long-haired hippie preloader, the story goes, a stooped, suited Jim Casey - evidently on a corporate visit - walked over to the oblivious youngster and said, “Hi, I’m Jim. I work for UPS.”

“Afterward, everyone came running up to me asking if I knew who he was, but all he’d said was, ‘I work for UPS.’ And that’s the thing about this place,” Petersik says, gesturing at the surroundings. “It’s a fuse. What’s new about the company now is that our teaching style matches your learning styles. But we’re still taking care of the customer - at my wedding, half the guests were my customers. That hasn’t changed in 100 years.”

But that isn’t the only thing that’s remained the same these last 100 years. While customers may be at the heart of UPS’s business, it’s drivers who are at the heart of UPS itself. And even today they carry the weight of their obligation - abbreviations and all - with such effortlessness that it’s easy to believe they’re just carrying boxes around.

But watch closely and those deliveries become something else entirely - an exhibition of routines so precise they never vary, limbs so trained they need no direction, and words so long remembered, they are like one’s own thoughts. It’s something I experienced my first day with UPS, as I did the rounds with Plateroti, though I couldn’t have named it yet. And I’ve been watching it ever since, each time I pass a package car on the road or share an elevator with my UPS driver.

“I see you’re wearing your shorts today,” a customer said to Plateroti and me that first afternoon, “keeping cool while you’re running around.” And Plateroti replied cheerfully, without a moment’s hesitation: “Not running. Walking at a brisk pace.”  

 

Monday, Nov. 18, 2007: Millennial Leaders was mentioned today in the Duke Basketball Report. Go Blue Devils!

The Daily Show explains why young people are the only ones who enjoyed the YouTube Debate - they’re the only ones who can see it.

My son Jack signed his letter of intent this past week to play golf for the University of North Carolina.  The photo below was taken while signing (I was asking Jack if he was 100% ready to sign!)  Congratulations Jack!  You have worked so hard for this, and I am very proud of you!  Go Tarheels!

Read the full story here.

Bea, Jack and Joel County (Principal for Pinecrest High School):

A little known fact. The number of college freshmen majoring in Computer Science has fallen by 70% since 2000, according to the Computing Research Association. Why? *They are watching companies farm out  and outsource projects oveseas*They are afraid of another dot com bust*They are more concerned with balancing their life better than the boomers and the X-man and X-women before them*They can teach themselves ‘the tricks of the trade’ – how to do web development on their own… something most traditional Comp Sci programs don’t teach

*They no longer think IT or Computer Sci classes are cool…So what do they do?

*They stay away from jobs that might attract 40+ hours in the office… We all know that IT departments in mid and large size companies work their you-know-whats off.

In chapter 3 of Millennial Leaders, we talked to Dr. Rebecca Ryan of Next Generation Consulting about what it takes for a city to be “cool enough” for Gen Y to want to live there.

Ryan and her colleagues have developed this amazing handprinting system.  They interviewed thousands of Gen Y young adults, and the results of the interviews revealed seven key indices that prove to make cities “cool” for Generation Y. Cities included in the study are: Nashville, Milwaukee, Oswego County (NY), Birmingham, Charlotte, Tulsa, Brevard County (FL), Iowa, Vermont, Canton (OH), Akron, and the Illinois-Quad Cities. The seven indices are:

1) Vitality. This is the community’s commitment to the environment.

2) Earning index. Does the city have a breadth of occupational options.

3) Learning index. Great K-12 education and options for contuning ed are a must.

4) After hours index. How much is there to do after 5:00 p.m.?

5) Around town index. How easy is it to get around town and “stroll” from one place to the next without having to drive from location to location?

6) Cost of lifestyle. Can Gen Y afford to live in the city?

7) Social network. Does the city have a rich social fabric, including a diversity of backgrounds and cultures?

Next Generation Consulting is really hot, hot hot! (or cool according to Gen Y). A copy of Next Generation’s handprinting systesm can be located here: http://nextgenerationconsulting.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/consulting.handprinting_madison.

A nice blog entry from Ryan Estis back in 2006

Call them what you will and take notice. This burgeoning generation (70 million; born between 1977 and 2002) is coming of age and arriving in the workplace with new ideas about the employment experience. Namely, “why should I work for you?” and “what are you going to offer me?”

Self assured, tech-savvy, and idealistic, they arrive at work with an evolved set of expectations around employment and their opportunity to have an impact from day one. The achievement orientation and natural impatience of this plugged-in, multi-tasking generation inevitably creates conflict for many employers and coincides with a time where the pool of skilled talent is shrinking.

As Boomers approach retirement and employers confront the talent exodus resulting from this natural attrition, many will find it necessary to adjust to the nuances of the new workforce in an effort to attract, engage, and retain a generation that is projected to be increasingly mobile and interested in seeking the next assignment. This may be in the context of the current employment relationship or often, ready to jump to the next gig.

Labels like high-maintenance or unrealistic may tag the Millennials at the onset of their entrance into the workforce. However, this educated, increasingly diverse (one in three is a minority) generation is also anticipated to be both quick to contribute and deeply coveted in a job market that includes a projected talent shortage between four and 10 million by 2010.

As your organization competes to attract the very best among Generation Y and integrate them into the workforce, these nine best practices are important to consider in demonstrating a compelling employment opportunity that ultimately can help you both acquire and retain the new talent you need to accomplish key business objectives into the future:

1. Relationship recruiting. While technology has improved recruitment process and efficiency, it is expressly important to remember that recruiting is still a people business. Over-reliance on automation can be a clear sign to candidates they may not be valued at the onset. This generation expects interface, contact, respect, consideration, and prompt response. The most talented among them will have options and need to be sold on the benefit of one opportunity in direct comparison to multiple options. High self-worth is a Gen Y characteristic and candidates need to feel valued during the recruiting process.
2. Employment branding. Critical to supporting a quality recruiting function, the employment brand should extend to candidates the unique opportunity and express benefit of employment with your organization. Millennials are image-oriented and expect to be associated with the best. They also want to clearly understand what they will be doing on a day-to-day basis specific to their job. A quality employment brand should demonstrate your compelling employment value proposition and give candidates an opportunity to self-select based on the notion that their skill-set, education, and experience are the right fit for your organization.
3. Candidate experience. Make the initial interaction and touch points with your organization a great experience for the candidate. Quality website? Simple application mechanism? Immediate recruiter interface? This tech-savvy generation can be instantly impressed with a great initial experience with your organization or can quickly move on to the next opportunity if the process is frustrating or inadequate.
4. Offer. The employment offer should be competitive and compelling. And with this group it isn’t just about the compensation. They value work-life balance and do expect some time away (not time away with so much work hanging over their heads that it doesn’t end up being a real vacation). They’re also financially astute and will be interested in the benefit package that includes a sound 401(k) and/or profit-sharing plan. Moreover, they want to contribute. Make the offer and opportunity to do meaningful work part of the equation.
5. Onboarding. With a group that is quick to change, the assimilation into the organization during the first 12 months is critical to ensure engagement and retention. Make sure there is a program that extends beyond orientation and includes relevant training, multiple touch points, consistent communication, and the opportunity to offer opinions about what could be improved upon. Make new employees feel welcome and like part of the team before they even start.
6. Mentoring. As an extension of onboarding, offer a mentoring program. New employees should be paired with someone who has an express interest in their success. Pairing candidates from different generations or across segments of the business is a great way to bridge gaps and build understanding throughout the workplace.
7. Feedback. The annual review will no longer suffice. This generation expects feedback and validation more often. This may involve some manager training to help bring about the appropriate level of performance review criteria and recognition to keep the new workforce motivated to achieve. Although a recognized virtue, patience is not noted among the group’s core character traits.
8. Flexibility. Happy to be held accountable to results, this generation brings some evolved thinking into the workplace with regard to when and how they go about doing their work. They live in a virtual world and respond well to the notion of autonomy around work schedules, telecommuting, home-office arrangements, and understanding that they desire true balance in their lives. If jeans and flip-flops are considered appropriate office attire, that’s a bonus!
9. Career-pathing. Upward mobility is a hallmark desire among Millennials. They want to not only understand what is expected in their present capacity but even more important, what will be required to move into the next opportunity. They anticipate changing employers to advance their career, and are always preparing to do exactly that. The employer that can demonstrate expeditious career-pathing has an advantage and opportunity to retain A-level talent among this group longer.

Generation Y, ready to make a meaningful impact, brings a bevy of unique attributes and talent into the workplace. The organization that is sensitive to their needs will have a distinct advantage and opportunity to capture their contributions in this increasingly competitive marketplace.

Social Bookmarks:

This is an interesting article from Newsweek (features Jean Twenge who is featured in Chapter 2 of Millennial Leaders). Many of the people who commented felt that the article is a bit negative, so I encourage you to read the comments section. This area will help you gain an understanding of what is really going on with Gen Y. As I have said…They did not get there alone! They are products of parenting, the media, technology and the world at large.

Example:  Check out the post that starts like this (really interesting):

“Comment: One problem with this article is that it is such a tiny slice of the population. Twenge discusses Americans as well as those from other countries but there is a great spectrum of individuals across the developed world and within America ??? and now there is a widening disparity between the rich and the poor. “  (From a Silent Generation leader…very insightful!)

Read Full Comments Here.

 Jason Dorsey, Generation Y expert and author of My Reality Check Bounced, is one of the twenty-something age leaders featured in the new book Millennial Leaders: Success Stories from Today’s Most Brilliant Generation Y Leaders. Dorsey appeared recently on the CBS 60 Minutes episode The “Millennials” Are Coming.

Southern Pines, NC (PRWEB) November 15, 2007 — In the new book, Millennial Leaders: Success Stories from Today’s Most Brilliant Generation Y Leaders (http://MillennialLeaders.com), the co-authors and executive coaches, Bea Fields, Scott Wilder, Jim Bunch and Rob Newbold feature interviews with 25 of the most successful Generation Y Leaders of tomorrow who are already leading today.

Jason Dorsey, Generation Y expert and author of My Reality Check Bounced, is one of the twenty-something age leaders featured in the book. Dorsey appeared recently on the CBS 60 Minutes episode The “Millennials” Are Coming.

“Jason is a very impressive and astute Gen Y leader who is making a positive impact on today’s culture,” said Bea Fields, one of the authors of Millennial Leaders and president of Bea Fields Companies, Inc. “His entrepreneurial prowess and adventurous spirit are spawning countless successes for Generation Y. Jason is a consummate role model for our future leaders.”

Natural entrepreneurs, members of Generation Y are just now making an impact in business and in the culture at large. In addition, as the first group to grow up immersed in media culture, they have a distinctive way of ordering their lives. Millennial Leaders brings readers a unique, close up look at the people responsible for the cutting edge of social and business trends.

“The leaders of Generation Y are our future, and it is time to start working with them — not resisting their efforts,” said Fields.

For more details about Millennial Leaders: Success Stories from Today’s Most Brilliant Generation Y Leaders, visit http://MillennialLeaders.com or contact Bea Fields at (910) 692-6118.