Generational Profiles

Experience Deficit in the Workplace

2007-09-13T08:37:00.001-07:00

What is your organization doing to prepare for the coming Experience> Deficit?

This is a question I posted on LinkedIn today. When focusing on generational differences in the workplace, perhaps organizations are over looking a key component in their overall corporate planning. Many organizations may be under the illusion that Boomers will be enticed to hang around longer than what normally would be expected by utilizing some of the incentives being offered to the Millennials. However, close observation suggests that many are playing along with corporate strategies until their exit date. The question stated more specifically could be: What tools or techniques is your organization or company doing to capture the 'EXPERIENCE' (not knowledge) of key personnel before they walk out the door for the last time.

In a recent conversation with a Sr. VP of Sales for an international chemical firm, I discovered both he and his wife were working this strategy. Seems that his reason for hanging on for a few more months is the interest rate on his retirement funds. With the new laws that have been passed, it is unclear to him what retirement strategy he will be taking. However, the plan is to exit within the next twelve months. As for his wife, she is holding out until her stock options are fully vested.

Back to the question: What is your organization doing to prepare for the coming Experience Deficit? Let me invite you to send your comments. It's an interesting question that needs some creative thinking.

Mick Grady

www.savoyriver.com
www.generationalprofiles.com
http://genprofile.blogspot.com/

Empowering Business In Generational Differences for the Workplace

Millennials - Fight or Flight

2007-09-06T14:11:00.000-07:00

Fight or Flight – A Generation Trying to Decide

A friend of mine who works at a large teaching hospital in the southwest was having lunch with a colleague. Their discussion centered around work and the new hires in each department. The colleague told a story of this young lady named Katlin (not her real name). Educated with honors, Katlin entered the workforce directly from the university. Her first task was working with people during admittance, but then would move into the accounting department, then on to management training for a climb up the corporate ladder. Katlin became disillusioned because of lack of clear direction from her boss. And after only a few weeks, despite the above average entry salary and flexible working hours, she quits. Most of her complaints during the exit interview were about her boss’s lack of response to her, lacking clear direction on jobs and her sense of lack of value by not being complemented on doing a good job.

One can only speculate on Katlin’s real issues but safe to say that she had a misconception of what it took to excel in the workplace. She thought it was all about her and what she was getting out of the job, not what she was giving or required to give. Many of the Millennials entering the workforce from college, or otherwise, have a view point that they should have their cake and eat it too without having to fight for their position and place. Having Katlin’s generational profile (www.generationalprofiles.com) would have been beneficial to her manager. Her boss would benefit by having a clear understanding on what motivates her and those of her generation.

My question to our Millennials: Are you going to fight or flight? Our human- nature gives us the ability to determine the split moment when to take flight when we see danger. Another instinct is the position of fighting. We all have the ability to determine whether to stand and fight or kick up our heals and run away. In Katlin’s case she decided to flee. Now I’m no military man but I know a little bit about how to over take an enemy. One very good way its to get in, make friends, learn their ways and become part of the solution.

Back in the 60’s many young people thought to change the world through the use of drugs, rock and roll, love, peace: known as Flower Power. When that all came tumbling down they devised a different strategy-get into politics and business. There are many wealthy business leaders and politicians who were part of or on the fringe of the hippie movement. These people became some of the most powerful movers and shakers of the Baby Boomer era. New leaders are emerging from the Gen Xers as well and I suspect the Millennials will have their great leaders, now in development.

Those who have taken on the challenge are people who entered in and took the time to find out what things were all about and learned to work within the system in order to change the system. Millennials could learn a few things using this strategy over the next 5, 10 or 15 years. A generational flip is about to occur and the Gen X’ers will soon be in charge of companies in this country and others around the world.

Mick Grady

mgrady@savoyriver.com

www.generationalprofiles.com

http://genprofile.blogspot.com/

Generational Profiles addresses Inner Generational Differences

A Mighty Sucking Wind

2007-09-04T15:08:00.001-07:00

A Mighty Sucking Wind – Generational Differences

Dan was searching. Still unsure as to his destiny in life he bounced from idea to idea, job to job. His redeeming quality was that he was quite polite and an accomplished artist. At the time, an application development company was looking for a good artist with great computer animation and programming skills. Dan had no knowledge of either, but he had potential. Shortly after going to work, his attitude changed and his sense of self-worth increased. Intelligence, drive and raw talent took Dan to a high position in the company. People admired his drawing skills and his animation work was worthy of someone who had been working for years.

It was alarming when he resigned. In fact it was quite disruptive to the company. They had given Dan access to the best mentors in the company in areas of programming, animation and artistic abilities. Clients who relied on his unique style were disappointed and finding a replacement could have been costly. How is a company to handle succession planning with short tenure of its up-and-coming talent? Fortunately, the company had a pool of great talent. I know because it was my company. Dan went on to better himself by attending a top commercial design university.

As I read some of the blogs lately, more and more people are saying that the Millennials are jumping from job to job. Companies are pouring resources, money and time into this age group yet they seem to take it for granted. JT O’ Donnel, www.jtodonnell.com, in a recent article talks about the need for Millennials need to stay put. She suggests that there are other alternatives for companies to find an alternate workforce is very real. One of the areas, in our country anyway, most affected by global talent shift is that of training. Consider five years ago, the average online training module was costing companies $50,000 for a one hour course. Today that cost has dropped to under $5,000. Reason is much of the training development has moved to India and China. Everything under the sun is being outsourced overseas and it’s not just manufacturing.

Obviously this is not the first time an entering generation has job hopped. In the 80’s Lockheed Martin, a large defense contractor, was having a problem with graduating engineers leaving them. Turnover was 100 percent or more per year. The reason was that Microsoft, Oracle, HP, Cisco and other large technology firms were hiring engineers at an alarming rate with one year’s experience at double the salary. This problem was overcome but not before training dollars and a large amount of time were spent recruiting older workers and offshore workers. If the Millennials wish to have respect they should consider the future of their generation without the need to jump from job to job. All of us in this country will benefit and when your generation sits atop the corporate ladder you won’t be doing it from an armchair in Bangladesh, maybe.

Mick Grady

mgrady@savoyriver.com

www.generationalprofiles.com

http://genprofile.blogspot.com/

Let Me Out of the Box (part 3 of 3)

2007-07-30T09:51:00.000-07:00

I distinctly remember a 74 year old accountant who was working part time in an office with several 20-something's. When he took the audit his profile showed him clearly a Baby Boomer. It was hard to comprehend, so we had him take it again, and again. Each time his results showed strong Baby Boomer
tendencies and traits even though he was born a GI Generation.

So here is what the Generational Profile data reveals. Each person has their own history that is
influenced by their generation. Those in that generation share similar experiences. However, a potentially greater influencer is our local surroundings, how we were raised, family members, our geographical location, religion and a host of others.

I realize much is being said these days about generational differences in the workplace but we don't exist and have our being within the confines of these four boxes - GI Generation, Baby Boomer, Gen X or Millennials.

For more information on generational differences in the workplace go to GenerationalProfiles.com

Let Me Out of the Box (part 2 of 3)

2007-07-30T09:49:00.000-07:00

Generational experts say that people in a given generation have the same traits and tendencies. However, when looked at closely we begin to see things being much different than what experts
have classified as “Your Generation”. Generations typically are described as a 20 year block of time, for example Generation X (or Gen X) was born in 1964 to about 1983. In history the shortest generation was 17 years and the longest was 24, so the actual dates become fuzzy depending on which expert you ask.

My colleagues and I had a thought. What if a person did not display the general traits and tendencies of their generation? We began attempting to understand how and where the lines were being drawn between generations and gathering the specifics of each generation to study the current generational mix in the workforce. We found that there are currently at least four generations in the US workforce.

Being web application and training developers, we built a database with a web interface to ask a few questions, collect the data, and emailed the URL to some of our friends. The result of our first generational audit was quite interesting and not what we had expected. We expected that everyone would generally follow their own generation. That is to say, a Gen X'er profile would reflect strong Gen X traits, Baby Boomers would score high on the Boomer scale, and so on.

What we actually saw was that people scored across generations. GI Gens scoring high Boomer or Boomers scoring as a high Gen Y. We concluded that many people actually associate themselves surprisingly well to other generations regardless of the generation in which they are born.

For more information on generational differences in the workplace go to GenerationalProfiles.com

Let Me Out of the Box (part 1 of 3)

2007-07-26T15:40:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered after all the personality profiles, age or gender profiles and other psychology testing in the workplace, why there seems to be something missing? For years we have put our faith and trust in these personality tests, all of which tend to be the same and produce effectively the same results. Companies use them to determine if new hires fit into the group or the corporate mold. Individuals like them because they confirm what we think of ourselves. Psychology test do serve a purpose, however when one is attempting to find the right person for the job, they do very little to define generational issues.

After 20 years of business consulting, marketing development, training and developing web applications, I have found the one thing that has remained the same; everyone is different. The experts tend to want to put everyone in a single box. You're this color, you go in this box. You're from this part of the world, you go over here or we understand you think like this, so...and so on. As for me the only thing that is consistent is that the older guys always seem to be in control of the younger guys, even back in the soaring DOT.COM world of the '90's. The older guys were in their mid 30's, or older and the younger guys were in their late teens or early twenties. That consistency is called generations. Each generation moves through time at the same pace. Each generation has its opportunity to be the wannabes and graduate to the experts then when they get tired of the race, they retire. Your generation is determined by a multitude of events in your life and your birth date is the divider - another box to put you in so the experts can track you down and sell you stuff.

Methinks differently.

For more information on generational differences in the workplace go to GenerationalProfiles.com