What is it that attracts & drives talent?

Avril Henry shares what drives each generation in the workplace and how HR managers can best engage and leverage the strengths of each generation set.

In Henry’s view Baby Boomers have been driven by job security, financial security, status and recognition for experience and they manage Gen-X and Y on the basis that they are driven by the same. She points out that those issues are not in the top five of Gen-X or of Gen-Y’s priorities. In fact, many people believe the global financial crisis is the best thing to happen to Gen-Y because now they will understand why those factors were so important to previous generations.

Gen-Y is by far the most adaptable generation because they are used to change. Henry believes Gen-Y’s just want to make enough money to enjoy their balanced lifestyle. They don’t want the stress of being micro managed. What drives Gen-X differs to Gen-Y. Top of Gen-X’s list is effective leadership, when asked what this means they’ll say, “We don’t expect you to have all the answers and we expect you to be honest about what you do know, and say what you don’t know, rather than pretend what you do know. We will respect you more as managers and leaders when you are honest about what you don’t know.”

People talk about Gen-X and Y as being disloyal. In Henry’s opinion this is because veterans and Boomers were extremely loyal to their chosen organisation and their chosen profession. Veterans in effect had a cradle to grave career, staying with the same organisation for forty years. Gen-X and Y would rather poke their eye out with a plastic fork than work at the same place for forty years.

Baby Boomers created the concept of the workaholic, doing what was expected of them and waiting their turn to be promoted and/or receive bonuses. They waited their turn to be recognised and then expected to be rewarded. However, with the recessions in 1991 and 1997, the Asian economic crisis and in the early part of this decade the technology crash Baby Boomers lost their jobs—not once or twice, but three times. This was devastating because they had been loyal, they had worked hard, and they had made personal sacrifices. And then, they lost their jobs, and the organisations simply said we do not need you anymore. Gen-X and Y were witness to this and as a result they are not loyal to organisations, because, in the words of Gen-X, “Organisations shaft people” and in the words of Gen-Y, “Organisations don’t care about employees as human beings.” Henry states there are two things Gen-X are loyal to: their careers and good managers. They start managing their careers when they are in high school in contrast to Boomers who allowed somebody else to manage their career. Gen-X will follow their managers from one organisation to another and from one department to another. Loyalty to line-managers is often more important to Gen-X than to the organisation as a whole.

Gen-Y is loyal to their friends and a good manager. Gen-Y often do not have a sense of family and are looking for a sense of belonging. This comes from work colleagues and friends from university and school.

Gen-Y is the first generation who will leave a job without another job to go to, much to the horror of their Baby Boomer parents and managers. While they wait for the right job they will take on part-time jobs. They see Boomers doing jobs they hate, working for people they do not like and being part of teams where they do not feel included. They are motivated by good leadership and challenging work. Gen-X are risk takers and want interesting jobs that challenge and stretch them. They are attracted to things that are new and they have not done before; they want new skills. Gen-X want regular constructive feedback and want to know when they are doing a good job, not so they become arrogant, but so they can keep doing what they have been doing well. They also want to know when they’re not doing a good job so that they can improve.

Henry shares her thoughts on what motivates Gen-Y.

Inspiring leadership. Gen-Y are a very optimistic generation. They have some really good values centred on community and the environment. They want to work in an organisation that makes a difference and contributes to society and the community and allows them to volunteer. Gen-Y want to work for and with people that love what they do—who love what they do so much that they are willing to share that knowledge with others.

Mentoring. Gen-Y want to be mentored by cool older people they like and respect and that like and respect them.

A supportive work environment. An environment that actually values creativity and innovation. This, says Henry, is why organisations like Google get the cream of the crop of young people—because they offer staff the opportunity to do innovative and creative things. Google employees get a creative day every fortnight. They can lie in the grass, go to a coffee shop or lie on the beach. They then share their creative idea at the next meeting.

Training and development. They want the possibility of professional development and personal growth and to know that what they are doing is adding value to the business and its clients. They want to understand the bigger picture.

Flexibility. Flexibility is not about part time work for women with school-aged children; it means an employer trusting that they will get the job done to the agreed standard by the deadline and that they get measured on the outcome. Henry states, “Unless I have to have face to face interaction with a client, when, where and how I do my job is not what is relevant. What’s relevant, is the outcome and results. That I have met the deadline and have met the standards.”

In Henry’s opinion organisations have been governed by fear, intimidation, hard control and threatening leadership styles for too long. She calls for investment in management and leadership development enabling managers to motivate people. This is not always about money, but the culture, leadership and what you offer employees. Organisations spend so much time on their external brand that they forget about the internal brand. In the Baby Boomer generation, Henry suggests that many were not given training in communication styles, influence or persuasion. Rather, they received leadership development by 'pillow osmosis'—going to bed and overnight, by the process of osmosis through their pillows, being imbued with people management skills.

Henry states, “An effective and inspiring leader is one who leads by example,” and must show commitment to the things they ask others to do. Managing change and diversity is different—that requires soft skills. “What I do know as an economist and reformed accountant is that soft skills produce hard results,” said Henry. She added, “Soft skills are much harder to learn than technical skills because it requires behavioural change, and behavioural change asks us to challenge the way we think.” When asked why they would leave their job, 90% of Gen-Y cited bad managers. Henry stresses that because of word-of-mouth, everyone will know and now it is a whole new ball game called “word of mouse.”

Henry believes that success will rely on your ability to do three things:

Your ability to learn new ideas, new ways of managing people

Your ability and willingness to unlearn old stereotypes, old assumptions, old ways of thinking and working

Your ability to relearn new ways of working, new ways of managing people and interacting with clients

She believes that the world belongs to learners and people who believe in continuous improvement.

“Cultural differences are much stronger between Boomers and Gen-X around the world. Conversely, Gen-Y share more similarities and show less differences. This is driven by technology such as social networking sites like Facebook and myspace.com. Generational differentiation is defined by when you were born and each generation is defined by political, historical and social events. The Boomers grew up during the Vietnam War, Gen-X are increasingly environmentally aware and have been influenced by global events like the nuclear fallout at Chernobyl and the fall of the Berlin wall. Gen-Y live with the increasing threat and occurrence of terrorism. The events that happen during your formative years are what shape you and the values of your generation. Technology has played a key role in bringing the world into the homes, universities and workplaces of Gen-Ys and they are increasingly influenced by the unlimited access they have to information. Gen-Y is well educated, tech-savvy and are willing to change. If they cannot find a job, they will create one. According to Henry, Gen-Y is the first truly global generation because they have access to information that other generations did not. By the time they are 18 the average Gen-Y will have sent or received more than 200,000 text messages and emails—more than most veterans get in an entire lifetime. Gen-Y is the Stimuli Junkie Generation. They have had constant access to technology and from a young age are constantly stimulated. This has affected their capacity to be focused and sit quietly. This may not change as they age. Technology will continue to develop and they will continue to embrace it as a way of life.