How Do You Manage The “Millennials” (Born between 1980 and 2001 you are a Millennial)

There was a time when authority was virtually unquestioned. No one would dare to tell their Captain on the battlefield that they disagreed with the “game plan” and would not follow orders. To a great extent that is still true when troops find themselves in battle and the old axiom of blindly following orders is still the rule by which soldiers live so hopefully they will continue to do so. Live that is!!

For the rest of us this has changed dramatically. One high profile example of this is with our professional athletes. I could tick off dozens of examples where high profile athletes have flaunted authority and made life miserable for everyone around them in an effort to get their way. And the sad part is they get their way more often than we care to think about.

I have always viewed sports as a metaphor for real life. Whether it is how the game is played or how winning and losing defines who you are, or how the personalities that play the games tend to represent the best and worst of what we see in everyday life. From this starting point I think all of us who are professional managers can take some lessons on how we might better prepare ourselves for the current and future stars in our own organizations.

We are experiencing a major change in the workforce which is seeing the exodus of millions of “Baby Boomers” and the emergence of a new generation known as “Millennials” labeled as such since they will be the first generation of the new millennium to leave their mark on the future. Figuring out how to manage this new crop of young people in the work force -- the millennial generation is a worthy challenge. Born between 1980 and 2001, the millennials were coddled by their parents and nurtured with a strong sense of entitlement. In a recent new book "The Trophy Kids Grow Up: How the Millennial Generation Is Shaking Up the Workplace," by Ron Alsop, a contributor to The Wall Street Journal, describes the workplace attitudes of the millennials and employers' efforts to manage these demanding future leaders.
More than 85% of hiring managers and human-resource executives said they feel that millennials have a stronger sense of entitlement than older workers, according to a survey by CareerBuilder.com. The generation's greatest expectations: higher pay (74% of respondents); flexible work schedules (61%); a promotion within a year (56%); and more vacation or personal time (50%).

Although millennials have high expectations about what their employers should provide them, companies shouldn't expect much loyalty in return. If a job doesn't prove fulfilling, millennials will forsake it in a flash. Indeed, many employers say it's retention that worries them most.
In the Michigan State/MonsterTrak study, about two-thirds of the millennials said they would likely "surf" from one job to the next. In addition, about 44% showed their lack of loyalty by stating that they would renege on a job-acceptance commitment if a better offer came along.
Companies have a vested interest in trying to slow the millennial mobility rate. They not only will need millennials to fill positions left vacant by retiring baby boomers but also will benefit from this generation's best and brightest, who possess significant strengths in teamwork, technology skills, social networking and multitasking. Millennials were bred for achievement, and most will work hard if the task is engaging and promises a tangible payoff.
In the final analysis, the generational tension is a bit ironic. After all, the grumbling baby-boomer managers are the same indulgent parents who produced the millennial generation. Ms.Subha Barry, managing director and head of global diversity and inclusion at Merrill Lynch sees the irony. She is teaching her teenage daughter to value her own opinions and to challenge things. Now she sees many of those challenging millennials at her company and wonders how she and other managers can expect the kids they raised to suddenly behave differently at work. "It doesn't mean we can be as indulgent as managers as we are as parents," she says. "But as parents of young people just like them, we can treat them with respect."
As professional managers we must strive to know our people better than they know themselves This is a supreme challenge when what they believe in, how they respond to authority, what motivates them, and what is important to them maybe significantly different than any expectations the managers who work with them may have had about themselves as they developed in their careers.

This gap, which by the way sounds eerily similar to the “Generation Gap” of the 60s and 70s, will be managed successfully if today’s managers are willing to take the time and make the effort to find out more about their people and how they can motivate them to achieve success. One thing is for certain the tools and technology that made the last generation of individuals and collectively companies successful are not the same as what will make companies of today successful. Millennials possess what is needed so it is up to managers to tap into it.Want to understand more give us a call and let’s start talking. www.OakHillTechnologyConsultants.com


Thanks to Ron Alsop’s The Trophy Kids Grow Up: How the Millennial Generation is Shaking Up the Workplace” copyright 2008 by Ron Alsop. Published by Jossey-Bass, a Wiley imprint

Win Back?? Does It Mean They Have Already Lost

“Win Back” has become a commonplace term in business today. The phone companies, who have consumers use their services for 100 years, and had no real reason to proactively try to keep them since they had no real alternatives, have been coining the phrase “Win Back” in a big way. This has more to do with the competitive landscape than anything else. After all if you can not lose them why worry about winning them back.

The phone companies are not the only service providers that are embracing the term “Win Back”. You see it with automobile dealers, airlines, retail stores. Just about any entity that has lost sight of what it takes to win and keep a customer has introduced some type of “Win Back” program. Now it is important to realize that these are not “Customer Retention” or “Customer Loyalty” programs.

“Win Back” is different. This suggests you have lost the customer. That begs the huge question WHY. What I have found mystifying over 30 years of sales, marketing, and business development experience is that somehow there is a large group of executive managers out there that truly believes it is much more critical to bring in “New” customers than it is to Retain “Existing” Customers.

The sad part about this is that the philosophy comes from the people who should know better. CEOs, Finance Executives, Investors (not the general public who owns stock, but the VCs, the Angels) and some other stakeholders who should clearly understand the old proverb of “A bird in hand is better than two in the bush.”

Let’s just talk pure economics. Every new customer will cost hundreds of dollars, and in some highly competitive businesses thousands of dollars to attract and close. Existing customers require excellent service, and just a little bit of hand holding when they have a problem. And sometimes the amount of effort you put into that hand holding might cost you hundreds of dollars, but you have already extracted a sizable profit, and the hand holding is really an investment in extracting more sizable profits. The return on investment for keeping an existing customer is a no-brainer!! Isn’t it??

Let me give you an example. There was a situation where I had a problem with my bill, and I reached out to the customer services team to get a resolution. I personally have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get resolution to billing issues and in this one instance explained to the customer service rep I would cancel the service over a $20 charge. They politely told me there was nothing they could do for me and that there was no supervisor available for me to speak with. They wished me luck and sent me on my way. (Believe me this really happened). In this particular case I knew an executive at the company, and called to ask them if they wanted to let me leave over such a small amount. Within 24 hours I was contacted by a senior executive from Customer Service and not only was the $20 charge forgiven there was an additional $200 of back billing which I was not claiming that they forgave as well. There are thousands of these cases every day where there is no mechanism in place to save the customer, and thus they become part of a very expensive “Win Back” program. Or even more hysterical management uses the focus on gaining new customers as some kind of remedy for losing previously loyal ones.

I could go on and on about situations where I did go through with a cancellation only to get a call or letter inviting me back with an array of incentives that just do not make sense. If we spend the time and energy to empower our employees (and yes they better be up to the job) and make managers accountable for losing customers then we will have a significantly more profitable organization, and with the lower churn will magically have more “Customer Loyalty”
Please feel free to share some examples of how you became a “Win Back” statistic, or like me were saved before you left the fold. It is not that important who the company is as much as it is important that we share ideas on how important it is (if you think it is) to create a culture of maintaining long term relationships with customers, and developing a culture that supports that

Poor Customer Service - Is It Technology or Management To Blame

I have come across some pretty interesting articles since our last newsletter which were both enlightening and alarming at the same time. The first had me roaring with laughter at first, but as I read deeper into the article I was not enjoying the read. The premise was a new technology that can be utilized in Call Centers which will (I guess using similar technology to a Lie Detector) determine the emotional and mental state of customer service representatives as they respond to calls. On the surface one might say, "Wow what a wonderful tool." Quite dehumanizing, but also quite efficient as the system will without any emotion make a recommendation as to when a Customer Service Representative is up to the job or not. What is the manager's role in the process? Make sure the system is powered up? Deliver the report to the employee? Talk about delegation of authority!

I was reading another article just the other day that spotlighted a major Retail chain that recently introduced a real time sales measurement device that can track sales associates every activity over certain periods of time and use the information to schedule work times for high sales achievers to work peak periods and lower performers to work off hours. Again on the surface, "Wow what a wonderful tool."

My concern is not that we are finding more and more ways to technologically replace our managers with machines (robots) but that we are not giving enough thought to what it is doing to the human element of Human Resources. Are we finally reaching a point in our employee relationships where the employee is going to be treated exactly as that one in one million computer chip that is unceremoniously taken out of the production line? If the employee does not reach the metric then terminate!

I would highly recommend that for any of you who are managers be aware of the technology that is being developed to replace your skills, and do your best to work with your executives to develop the tools to assess your people to know their strengths and weaknesses, and feed their strengths and train for their weaknesses. If you know them you can improve them, and they will respond appropriately. I sincerely believe there is no replacement for skillful managers who use technology to better the human interaction.

Employees should embrace an employee engagement approach as well. If it is designed to evaluate strengths and weaknesses for a given role objectively, and more importantly offers a program for improvement that feeds the human side of what managers are paid to do then it can be a win-win. Your future career may depend on the knowledge and mentoring a well designed assessment program will allow management to share with you.