Gen Y Tip #1: Creating a "New Generation Board"

No, this isn't a new board game to play at the office. This is an idea to let your Gen Y employees have a voice and share their ideas. We all expect the company Executive Board to oversee and help solve organizational challenges, right? Why not create a "My Generation Board" as well? This new board would also oversee and help solve certain aspects of the organizational challenges. My guess is that they'd find unique ideas that no one has thought of before! And if you allow them to help execute their ideas, you'll be able to retain them for longer. A win-win for everyone!

Three Ways to Motivate Gen Y

The pulse of business in America is throbbing. People are concerned about the financial crisis, economy and upcoming elections. Despite this uncertainty, organizational attrition rates are high, up to 20% for some large firms. So what can leaders do to not only retain Gen Y employees, but get the most out of them during these lean times?

Yahoo! HotJobs and Robert Half International's special report, What Millennial Workers Want: How to Attract and Retain Gen Y Employees outlines the business imperative for developing Gen Y to become future leaders. The first place to look is your workplace environment, especially their colleagues, their life-work balance and their direct supervisor.

Let's start with their colleagues. The surprising thing about this wired generation is that two-thirds of Gen Y favor in-person conversations with their co-workers over other types of communication. So today's businesses need to create lots of "face time" opportuntities that allow Gen Y's to connect with each other. This doesn't have to involve costly meals or cafeterias. You could create open seating areas for team project meetings, comfortable lunch rooms and/or fun break rooms or water cooler areas.

Work-life balance is another huge priority for Gen Y. They are constantly looking for ways to balance their personal and professional lives. As a manager, lend them your ear and support. Let them know that you understand they have a life outside the office and guide them to tools and resources that will help them find their own balance.

What about their boss? How does a direct supervisor directly impact the job satisfaction and retention of Gen Y? Their dream boss has good management and communcation skills, is flexible and open-minded, and respects his/her employees. Be warned: Millennials are used to constant and direct supervision from parents, teachers and sport coaches; they expect the same from their bosses, thinking nothing of communicating with their boss several times a DAY!

Gen Y bosses must focus on their own skill development, in order to coach their Gen Y employees to greater success. Your Gen Y employees may not stay with you forever, but they will stay longer if you give them the skills and development they need to get to the next level of success. According to one Gen Y in the report, "...the ideal manager has clear expectations and takes time to meet with me...must be able to help me grow and guide me in my professional development, and be a mentor." Her nightmare boss is " a micromanager who is not concerned with my professional development...". Although it may take more time up front, it's clear that Gen Y bosses must be strong managers with excellent coaching and mentoring skills. Not there yet? Get some resources to help you now! You can download the Yahoo! HotJobs and Robert Half International's special report for free here. I also highly recommend Millennials Incorporated by Lisa Orrell, a quick read with plenty of tips and advice. Or feel free to ask me about my workshops, talks and latest Gen Y research.

Who is Gen Y and why should you care about them?

Everyone wants to know how to effectively work with Gen Y. But before you can even work with them effectively, you need to understand them. Here are some fast facts:

• Gen Y was born between 1982-2002. In comparison, Baby Boomers were born between 1943-1960 and Gen X was born between 1961-1981.

• The Gen Y generation is bigger than the Baby Boomer generation, by as much as 2 million people.

• Gen Y is also known as the Millennial generation, because the first Gen Y’ers graduated from high school in 2000.

• Gen Y was influenced by 9/11, Enron and Bill Clinton. They are hopeful, social, outspoken, goal orientated, inclusive, inquisitive and ambitious.

• They grew up with computers so understand technology intuitively and multi-task well. Consequently, they are connected, visual and prefer working interactively.

• They value work-life balance, making a difference in the world, developing their skills, honesty, integrity and recognition for their work.

• They expect to be developed in their job. Even if you can’t promote them, they expect you to give them the skills they need for their next job. As one Gen Y explained to me, “Why should I invest my time in a company if they’re not going to invest in improving my skills?”

Many companies complain about Gen Y and how hard it is to retain them. I get that. Every generation has a challenge working with the next generation. However, giving them everything they want is not the solution. So what does a good leader do to get the most out of Gen Y?

Be clear with them
From day one, be sure to discuss their role, your expectations and their 3, 6, 9 and 12 month goals. Then be sure to give them immediate feedback, good and bad. They respond well to honest, transparent comments, so let them know sooner than later how they’re doing on the job.

Coach them
Gen Y has been coached since they could walk…in soccer, hockey and other team sports. They are used to having a coach work with them. So hone your coaching skills and ask them questions to get their input. They will be much more involved and ready to improve if they are part of the solution.

Create a mentoring program
Gen Y responds well to elders, as many were very involved with their grandparents as children. Create a mentor program for them, so they have another leader to go to with their problems. This not only helps you, but it also helps them access different resources at different times.

Develop their skills
This doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. Allowing them to work with different teams or on different projects will improve their skills and make them more loyal to your organization.

Be open minded
Don’t be surprised when a Gen Y asks you “why” for the 10th time in an hour. This may seem disrespectful to Baby Boomers, but Gen just wants to understand the goal to see if they can improve it with the connectivity and technology. So be open-minded with them; explain the desired outcome and let them try to find a new solution. It’ll keep them motivated, and may save you time and resources.

Make it fun
Gen Y thrives on fun. Not cheesy fun. Real fun! So get their input on how to make the office more fun. You’ll be surprised at what they come up with.

Gen Y gets a lot of bad press; many people ask why they even have to work with Gen Y. The bottom line is that these young professionals are here to stay; their sheer size alone will revolutionize how businesses operate. So take some time and get to know them. They’re a lot more fun and energizing than most people think! And that energy may just help you take your company to the next level of success.

These are just a few of my top tips on how to get the best out of Gen Y. For more ideas, feel free to ask me about my workshops, talks and latest research.

How to Manage Gen Y

"What do we do with Gen Y?" is being echoed daily on the internet, in the press and by the office water cooler. When I mention to friends that my next book is full of tips and tools to get the best out of Gen Y at work, I always get pulled aside for some advice on how to handle this generation at work. While there are blogs and online articles to help managers successfully work with Gen Y, there are few books that give practical solutions. My favorite book, Millennials Incorporated by Lisa Orrell, is a gem for HR managers. My favorite blog is by Tammy Erickson; you can find her musings on this generation on businessweek.com

I'll be focusing my next blogs on managing Gen Y for the best results. In the meantime, I wanted to leave you with this quote on managing Gen Y from Jim Collins, management expert and author of Good to Great and Built to Last, excerpted from the August 25 issue of Business Week:

"I don't understand this generational tension thing other than that I think the tension is great. You should find a way to have young people in your face all the time. Wrestle with is. Revel in it. Learn from it. My view is, we ought to get those people into positions of leadership as fast as we can."

How to Effectively Motivate

In 1968, the Harvard Business Review (HBR) published Frederick Herzberg's article, "One more time: how do you motivate employees?". This is still one of the most widely read HBR articles ever. The most important paragraph in the article says: "If I kick my dog (from the front or the back), he will move. And when I want him to move again, what must I do? I must kick him again. Similarly, I can charge a person's battery, and then re-charge it, and re-charge it again. But it is only when one has a generator of one's own that we can talk about motivation. One then needs no outside stimulation. One wants to do it."

How many times do we "re-charge" an employee's battery, thinking it will bring better results? I did it all the time as a new manager. I wanted my employees to be motivated at work, so I became the department's #1 cheerleader. I brought in cookies, games, and rewards. I didn't notice a difference, so I then brought in even more treats, upping the ante. It still didn't work. The result? I spent hours trying to re-charge their battery, while draining my own.

It was only when I understood the concept of coaching, and motivating an employee from within, that I noticed a change in my team's productivity. It was only when I truly listened to them, and asked them for their ideas and input, that things started to shift as a team. It was only when I stood back and let them create their own solutions that I saw the department's energy level and motivation increase.

It wasn't the cookies, games or prizes that created the change. It was helping employees find their own generator, though coaching, that created the strong motivational team that won many, many awards.

Five Tips for Good Coaching Questions, Part 5

In my last blog, I talked about Tip #4 for asking a good coaching question. Let's look at Tip #5 today.

Five Tips for Good Coaching Questions

1. Keep them Open
2. Keep them Short and Stupid
3. Keep them Advice-Free
4. Keep them Forward-Focused
5. Keep them Thought Provoking

5. Keep them Thought Provoking

If a coachee asks you for coaching, chances are that the person has thought about the coaching issue for a long time, in multiple ways. They have thought about the causes, possible solutions and everything in between. Now they need you to help them think bigger than what's in front of them.

As a manager, you want to empower your employees to think out of the box and find innovative solutions to their problems. The problems could be task-related, such as "how to improve sales" or they could be process-related, such as "how to collaborate better with the team". Thought-provoking questions work in both situations. Either way, it's important to help the coachee think bigger than their usual ideas.

Thought provoking questions may take awhile to answer, so it's OK if the employee doesn't have an immediate reply. You want the employee to think about the question and really look at it from all angles before answering. The sign of a good thought-provoking question is when the employee comes to you a week after you asked the question and says, "I've been mulling your question over. It really made me think."

So how do you do this? When an employee comes to you with a problem, think about questions that will stretch the employee - questions that cannot be answered right away.

Here's an example:

Coachee:

I'm certain that Plan X is the right way to go but I'm getting vibes that others disagree with me. What do I do?

Typical manager reply:

I think Plan X is a good idea too. So I think you should hold a meeting to discuss your points and persuade the others that your plan is the best.

Better coaching question:
Where will Plan X take the company, and this team, in 10 years? And where will it take you personally in 10 years?
(This will likely prompt the coachee to ask for more time to think about the question. The coach would then invite the coachee to let her know when she's ready to discuss it in more detail.)


In my next blog, I'll discuss more tips about using the word "why" in coaching questions.

Five Tips for Good Coaching Questions, Part 4

In my last blog, I talked about Tip #3 for asking a good coaching question. Let's look at Tip #4 today.

Five Tips for Good Coaching Questions

1. Keep them Open
2. Keep them Short and Stupid
3. Keep them Advice-Free
4. Keep them Forward-Focused
5. Keep them Thought Provoking

4. Keep them Forward Focused
As a manager, it's easy to stay in the past and constantly fight fires. It's hard to lift your head from your daily tasks and actually get a sense of where your ship is heading. I get it. At one point in my career, I managed 2 hotels and a safari camp in Africa, with a total of 400+ staff and 400+ guests. I know what it's like to barely manage my workload, let alone plan for the future.

Yet, it's a manager's job to get out of the weeds, stay forward focused and coach your employees to do the same. Otherwise, you and your team will barely move forward; you'll just stay in the same place, treading water.

So how do you do this? When an employee comes to your with a problem, take a step back and try to see how this problem could impact the department's strategic vision. Think about how the solution to the problem will impact the team, and organization, in a year. This will give you and your employee a very different perspective.

Here's an example:

Coachee:
I can't work with Sue anymore. She cut me off again in today's meeting. I want you to talk to her about it.

Typical manager reply:
She did? What did she say? Then what did you say? Then what was her reply? Let me have a word with her.... (This line of questions keeps the coachee in the past, and dis-empowers her from finding her own solution.)

Better coaching question:
Coach: I can see that you're angry about this. What upsets you the most?

Coachee: The fact that she doesn't respect my ideas.

Coach: I get it. What's your contribution to the problem?

Coachee: Me? I dunno....maybe I don't stand up for myself when she cuts me off.

Coach: And how does that impact the organization?

Coachee: My ideas don't contribute to the bottom line.

Coach: That's a big loss. What would happen if you stood up for yourself?

Coachee: I'd be more excited about working here. I'd speak up more. And listen more, because I wouldn't be fuming in meetings. I'd collaborate better with others because I felt heard.

Coach: So how do you want to handle this in the future?

Coachee: I'll remind Sue that I wasn't finished with my thoughts and then finish them. Then I'll listen to what she and others have to say about my idea.

Coach: Great! I know this will be hard at first...I also know that you can do it. Keep me posted on your progress.

In my next blog, I'll discuss Tip #4. Until then...stay forward focused!