BusinessWeek.com provides a good article for adjusting your communication for Gen X and Gen Y employees. I can’t speak to the Gen Y suggestions, but I find the Gen X piece to be spot on. A sample: TECHNOLOGY Generation X: Keep it up-to-date and motivating. Music at work, BlackBerrys, IM, and fast computers will help Gen X stay productive. Generation Y: Encourage suggestions and don’t fear change. Gen Y is more comfortable with technology than any other group. Learn from them and stay on the cutting edge. COLLABORATION Generation X: Limit in-person meetings. Offer alternatives like conference calls, video, and Web conferencing when collaboration is truly needed. For face-to-face meetings,… Read More
Continue ReadingGen Xodus
BusinessWeek.com has an article titled Today’s Top 10 Talent-Management Challenges that provides some interesting tidbits from 3 different talent managers. One topic leaped off the screen: 6. Stemming the exodus of Gen X’ers from corporate life. A big threat in many firms today is the exodus of mid-career talent—people in whom the organization has invested heavily and in whom it has pinned it hopes for future leadership. For example, developing talent management practices and programs calibrated to leverage technology and create greater work/life balance has been a priority for Mercer over recent years. The sheer smallness of my generation creates pockets of problems with the marketplace. This particular problem is… Read More
Continue ReadingTalkin’ About My Generation
From BusinessWeek.com’s Ten Reasons Gen Xers Are Unhappy at Work (my editing): Corporations really need Gen X—folks in their 30’s to early 40’s, who should begin to serve as our primary corporate leaders over the next couple years. But I fear many current corporate executives are taking this small and therefore precious group for granted. Why are many X’ers uncomfortable in corporate life? 1. X’ers’ corporate careers got off to a slow start and many are still feeling the pain. You graduated when the economy was slow and the huge bulge of Boomers had already grabbed most of the key jobs. As an article in the May, 1985 issue of… Read More
Continue ReadingRecareering Baby Boomers
The retiring Boomers and the lack of X’ers to replace them is a well-documented problem in the labor force. The Herman Trend Alert speaks to this problem, and more importantly to a solution, in their latest newsletter: Many Baby Boomers retirements are, in fact, often “recareering” instead. See our previous Herman Trend Alert http://www.hermangroup.com/alert/archive_5-23-2007.html. All of the major players: Adecco, Manpower, Kelly, and Spherion now offer their clients the options of rehiring their retired employees as “consultants”, thus protecting them from certain legal liabilities. Many recareering Boomers are looking for project-based work, giving their employers the advantage of not hiring them as full-time, permanent employees on the payroll. The bottom… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Video Game Generation
These definitions are from Selling Power’s Talkin’ about Different Generations: The Silent Generation Consisting of workers over the age of 60, these folks tend to follow traditional patterns; they take their work seriously, expect to do this job for the rest of their working life, and feel comfortable working alone, knowing that they are trusted to perform up to or beyond expectations. Baby Boomers Born between the years 1943 and 1964, Boomers currently comprise almost half the workforce in many organizations. They tend to be a bit more individualistic than their elders, and struggle with workaholism and work-life balance issues. Generation X Born from 1964 to 1981, Gen X-ers have… Read More
Continue ReadingWeb Commute
That is a term coined by Citrix and one I suspect we will see with some frequency. If gas goes to $4/gallon, I suspect these articles will publish daily. ManageSmarter.com offers up an article discussing the preference of today’s workers to have technological flexibility in their job. The key here is the demographics of the results (emphasis mine): …U.S. workers aged 18-34 prefer flexible working conditions two-to-one over other age groups. In fact, 70% of survey respondents agreed that working remotely would be a welcome opportunity. In an era where acquiring and retaining good employees is a challenge, and the workforce is becoming increasingly young and mobile, offering the ability… Read More
Continue ReadingHow To Run A Gen X Meeting
As a Gen Xer, this article caught my attention on the Selling Power website. Some of the points from the article: Do remember this group has an entrepreneurial spirit. “They are individualists,” says Fishman. “Treat them as independent agents. They like to be in charge of things. If you have 100 people at your sales meeting, you have 100 entrepreneurs there.” Don’t hire motivational speakers. “This is not a group that needs to be motivated,” says Fishman. “They don’t like spin, hype, or touchy-feely. They want something that they can take back to the office that will help them sell. Sharpen their skills; that’s what they’re there for. Give them… Read More
Continue ReadingBlack Friday Stats
Today is the biggest shopping day of the year and Maritz Research has some of the stats to define the day: A recent Maritz® Poll found that one-third of respondents (37 percent) plan to shop on the day after Thanksgiving. In last year’s poll, a similar number (34 percent) said they would shop on Black Friday. In addition, those who plan to shop on Black Friday say they will spend more overall on their holiday purchases – $790 compared to $637 for all shoppers combined. Black Friday also has generational implications with the majority of Gen Y respondents (59 percent), as well as a significant portion of Gen X (46… Read More
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