Generation X - Getting in Touch with the Energy!

Paula Williams and John Williams

The Opportunity

With the rise of high-tech jobs, and the drop in the unemployment rate, you’re finding yourself in need of bright, talented people. What you’re finding, however, is that the job seekers of the late 90’s are nothing like anything you’ve ever dealt with before. They’re acquiring vast repertoires of technical skills at a very young age. They expect more from their jobs than people ever have. They may state rather shocking political or religious views around the coffeemaker in the morning, or with posters in their cubies. They listen to a very strange eclectic mix of industrial rock music and nature sounds.

How does one attract, lead, manage and retain such people?

The Solution

You can leverage this workforce, and build a culture of mutual benefit by understanding who they are, respecting their influence in the workforce, and understanding what turns them off and what motivates them. It is possible to leverage not only their technical savvy but also their energy and enthusiasm to your corporate cause.

If your company is seen as progressive and forward-thinking, this group is wonderfully loyal, adaptive and inventive in helping frame and achieve corporate success.

Who are They?

“Generation X” is a nebulous term assigned to the generation of twenty to thirty year olds in our society (specifically, the culture in the United States, although most of the world has felt the effects of “Generation X.) As a population, they are more technologically savvy than any group of people has ever been. A number of them come from single-parent households or mixed family groups. They feed billion-dollar industries in entertainment, apparel, and snack food; that cater exclusively to them.

Like all young people, they tend to be a bit more extreme than their older counterparts. A company lunch in a typical high GenerationX -population office might include huge amounts of caffienated beverages and bottled water. You may see an equal amount of Meat-Lover’s Super Cheese Extra-Cholesterol Pizza next to Vegan Macrobiotic Take-Out in square boxes eaten with chopsticks. They seem equally at home in pinstriped suits; or unshaven in cut-offs and flip-flop sandals worn to work.

Their speech varies from MBA vocabulary verbiage; to pigeon-Java laced with slang.

They have lived their entire lives in an unprecedented time of relative peace and economic prosperity. They have lived their entire lives with computers in their homes and schools. We are just now beginning to see the effects of these advantages on human development.

What Is Their Influence on the Workforce?

These are people who grew up in a school system saturated with technology. Apple, IBM, 3COM, Netscape, Microsoft and many others have made huge contributions to public and private schools. This was not merely an altruistic gesture, these companies saturated the young, emerging markets, and hoped that their young prodigies would take the technology home with them and influence family buying decisions in getting personal computers into homes and their parents’ offices. They were overwhelmingly successful.

As a result, we have a population that refuses to waste time on manual tasks, or waste time waiting on machinery when they know that there are more efficient means of getting things done. Many of these people would not be caught dead reading a book with the word “Dummies” in the title. They know their skills are light-years ahead of where their older counterparts were at their age. But many of them also feel that they’ve missed something. Many of them grew up with less adult input. Many of them are very independent, or depended on their peers rather than their families to fulfill their social and emotional needs.

They form strong, family-like bonds with their friends and peers; and if these happen to be co-workers, they are willing to spend long hours and make sacrifices if they will be recognized for their contributions to group success. They expect to be consulted when management decisions are being made that touch on their areas of expertise, and they want to see how their work contributes to the bottom line of the company.

This is the generation that has spearheaded much of the teamwork-oriented organizational movements. They have also been the inspiration and impetus for profit-sharing and employee ownership compensation packages.

What Turns Them Off?

This is a population that few companies can afford to alienate- as a workforce and as a consumer market.

The best way to alienate them is to take an extreme approach to leadership and management- either by micromanaging or by caving in arbitrarily.

Micromanaging

If you don’t have the technical skills they do, don’t try to tell them how to do things. Give them very specific boundaries or functional requirements for the product or result that needs to be produced, but don’t get into the detail of how to write Java code if you don’t know an applet from a bean.

Caving In

Your role as a leader or manager is to ensure that deliverables get produced, and that clients are served professionally. Generation Xers understand that without deliverables and clients, their jobs are not secure. They expect you to do your job, even when they grumble about particulars. As long as you are reasonable and fair, you will get along fine on the whole. (Which is not to say there won’t be occasional storms!)

Although they may seem to have the world by the tail, they are turned off by people who cave in to every request and violate their own principles and rules, even on their behalf.

Balanced Leadership

They expect reasonable limits. They will typically have more respect for a few simple but rigidly (and universally) enforced rules that are well-publicized and understood. Rules that are seen as arbitrarily enforced, superficial, or discriminatory will probably be ignored, or complied with grudgingly and only when someone is watching. They internalize rules that make sense to them- where they can see the value in complying or the harm in not complying. Respect your companies principles and rules, do not change them without due process, or keep them without recourse.

It is also important to make consequences relevant to the situation also helps. For example – you have a programmer with excellent skills, but who routinely violates the dress code. Many companies ignore his behavior but keep him in a back-row cube where he’s less likely to be seen; or deny him a performance bonus (although he’s performing excellently.) A more specific approach would be to discuss with him the possibility of a more responsible position, but one that would require customer contact, and let him make the choice. Another would be to enforce a disciplinary process each time a violation occurs that is consistent with the company’s policies.

Respect his right to dress that way, but not necessarily on company time, depending on the circumstances, existing standards, and needs of the business. Make sure you also respect your own rights to objectively apply standards. If it’s time to revamp the dress code, by all means do so. But do it universally and then enforce it.

What Motivates Them?

Generally, what motivates Generation Xers are the same things that motivate the rest of us. There are a few items that seem more intense to this group, however. Being recognized for their contributions. Give them an opportunity to shine. Be sure the requirements are challenging, specific, real and realizable, and then shower them with public recognition when they meet those requirements.

• Being fairly compensated for their contributions. While some companies may object to paying what they see as an exorbitant salary or bonus for a twenty-something year old; others use specific measures and offer incentives for meeting objectives regardless of age or position.
• Trust (being trusted, even with small things at first, by their managers, leaders and co-workers)
• Recognition (being consulted in their field of expertise, being visibly and publicly thanked for their contributions to group success, especially.)
• Artistic/Intellectual Freedom (being told the specifics of what needs to be produced,but not how to produce it.)
• Personal Freedom (being allowed to dress the way they like, listen to music they like, etc. within reasonable limits- ie. after 5 or while working weekends; or having “khaki Fridays” where business casual dress is acceptable. This will need to be evaluated depending on your industry, the amount of client contact, etc.)
• Food (This is actually a motivating factor for any demographic group. Notice the boost in attendance at any non-mandatory meetings where refreshments are served! Food is actually a fairly inexpensive way to provide social opportunities and show a kindness to your workforce, regardless of demographics.)
• A non-judgmental, listening ear (that doesn’t agree with everything they say, but respects their right to their political, religious, and other views.)

Conclusion

Young people will amaze you with their energy, creativity, and innovation, given half a chance. If you don’t provide that chance, you company risks high turnover, technological obsolescence, and losing touch with a very lucrative market. If you approach relationships respectfully- realizing the potential of each individual, and if you look for and cultivate the beginnings of working relationships; you have an abundance of opportunities to leverage their energy, technology, creativity, fresh ideas, enthusiasm and fascinating friendships.