In 2014, I worked with Deloitte on a survey that assessed the state of millennial leadership across the globe. We quickly learned that millennials were not the kids anymore. Instead, fully half of our respondents consider themselves leaders, with decision-making authority and direct reports. And they want to do things a bit differently than their predecessors.
When we asked millennial professionals about the most important actions required of future leaders, they cited the ability to develop skills in others, the ability to inspire, encourage, and motivate others, and the ability to foster an inclusive work environment.
Millennials diverged from prior generations in their significant emphasis on inclusion. For millennials, workplace diversity is mandatory and they expect team members to be treated with the same level of respect and dignity regardless of their gender, ethnicity, and experience level.
Defining the Ideal Leader
Perhaps due to the impact of globalization, we found surprising cross-cultural similarities in how millennials portrayed the future business world and described their perfect leader. There were, however, subtle differences. For instance, millennials in more mature markets such as Germany and the United Kingdom admire leaders who solicit and take action on their feedback while explaining business contexts and communicating a vision.
Less developed markets like Brazil and Mexico like leaders who encourage risks and provide constructive feedback and resources. Across all geographies, millennials expect 21st century leaders to be more transparent – departing from the baby boomer model of leader as distant and autocratic.
Many working millennials came of age at a time when senior executives were under increased scrutiny due to ethical violations, which may explain their desire for future leaders to be truthful and trustworthy. These traits were consistently listed as the most critical leadership characteristics among millennials in most geographies.
A few months ago, I attended an employee engagement workshop. The facilitator suggested that millennials require performance feedback more than once a year. “Maybe once a quarter,” she said.
More like once a day!” I couldn’t resist calling out.
I wasn’t kidding. For the 80 million millennials who now make up a majority of the workforce, no news is bad news. If they don’t hear from their managers frequently, they think they’re doing something wrong and quickly grow disillusioned.
Nevertheless, an open door policy in which employees are invited to stop by a manager’s office for extended feedback sessions multiple times a day simply isn’t practical. So what’s the solution?
The innovative concept of microfeedback originated in the consumer space and consisted of collecting a small amount of information from customers at key moments in their shopping experience. The goal was to gather relevant customer feedback for a more accurate assessment of their satisfaction.
Think about this, though. Why can’t the idea of microfeedback be extended to performance management? We certainly have the technology. Intra-company messaging systems like Yammer, Skype for business, and Slack are growing exponentially and with some groups (like millennials), are even more popular than email.
Imagine that your direct report gives a status update in the departmental meeting for the first time. You think she did an exceptional job, but instead of noting it in her file to be reviewed in six months (or worse, forgetting about it completely), you send her a “thumbs up” emoticon via Slack. The action takes you less than 30 seconds, and yet your employee has a piece of encouraging feedback that will make her day.
According to the Pew Research Center and the U.S. Census Bureau, in mid-2015, the millennial generation (comprising those born from 1980 to 1995) became the largest cohort in the workforce.
By now, millennials have been in the professional world since the early 00s. The oldest ones turn 36 this year and have progressed substantially in their careers. A 2014 Deloitte millennial leadership study illustrated that due to demographic shifts, the millennials are entering leadership positions an average of 10 years earlier than prior generations. In fact, at the time of the study, half of all global millennial respondents self-identified as leaders, meaning they had decision-making authority and direct reports.
Although millennials have had sufficient time to prove themselves, negative stereotypes persist. And if organizations want to grow and support multi-generational teams, we must dispose of these myths and treat millennials as smart, innovative and conscientious individuals who are dedicated to changing business for the better.
Stereotype #1: They’re entitled.
One of the most frustrating misconceptions of all is that millennials are lazy and expect to be handed a career without paying their dues. In a 2015 article, the New York Post cited a recent study finding that 71 percent of American adults consider millennials selfish, and 65 percent find them entitled.
“Millennials seem to have helped themselves to an extra portion at the entitlement buffet (which is all-you-can-eat, obviously, because it’s their right),” wrote Post columnist Mackenzie Dawson.
The truth is that millennials are eager to work hard, as long as they are empowered to do so efficiently and on their own terms. They may eschew bureaucracy and the status quo, but a 2014 Bentley Universityfound that 77 percent of millennials believe flexible hours are the key to better productivity and 89 percent regularly check work email outside normal work hours.
“I recognize that hard work will get me far in my career, but I understand the importance of balance and moderation that will lead to a happy life,” said millennial writer Erin Heilman in a recent op-ed for the Baltimore Sun.
Stereotype #2: They lack critical skills.
Many supervisors believe that the lack of basic skills is killing America’s young professionals. “The more I interact with millennials -- whether I'm interviewing them, overseeing internships or giving speeches to rooms of them -- the more I see it. It's an entire generation that doesn't know how to communicate,” proclaimed theSilent Partner Marketing blog.
“Little emperor syndrome is one of the primary reasons millennials lack soft skills. Adults have catered to their needs their entire lives,” explained Heather Anderson in the Credit Union Times Magazine. Nobody locked them out of the house and forced them to entertain themselves, building imagination, curiosity and trial-by-error decision making skills.”
But, according to 2015 research conducted by DeVry University’sCareer Advisory Board, the skills gap for entry and junior-level professionals is narrowing. Hiring managers are increasingly finding desirable skills like flexibility, business acumen, problem-solving and communication skills in millennial candidates.
Millennials also bring innovation expertise, which is critical for organizations to remain competitive in the 21st century business world. And, as businesses rely more and more on technology, millennial digital natives help companies navigate the space.
For the rest of this article, a collaboration between Yarden Tadmor of SwitchApp and myself, head over to Entrepreneur.com.
My 4-year-old daughter Serena will be 30 in 2041. Assuming that she has a college degree and eight years of work experience, how might she fare in a world dominated by contract workers, fluid teams, human-centered work, persistent pay gaps, blurred work-life boundaries, and biases that have been around since the beginning of time? Well, let’s investigate.
1. INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION
Serena was born in 2011, the year the U.S. birth rate dipped to its lowest recorded level. As the U.S. birth rate keeps trending below 2.0 births per woman, that doesn’t mean young women will face less competition for school acceptance and jobs in the coming decades.
Instead of vying with other Americans her age, my daughter will fight for a place among hyper-qualified professionals from around the world. While her generation struggles to support the population of adults over 65—projected to triple by mid-century—it will face a global talent pool from which companies can hire the best people no matter where they're based.
2. CONTINUING GENDER GAPS IN LEADERSHIP
Will my daughter preside over her own company? She probably won't, and yours isn't likely to either—unless current trends make a dramatic turnaround.
According to Judith Warner at the Center for American Progress, women’s presence in top management positions today remains below 9%, and their percentage on all U.S. corporate boards has been stuck in the 12.1–12.3% range over the past decade. A 2014 Babson College study showed that, on average, just 60 female CEOs got VC funding in the years 2011–2013. This is surprising given that women are the majority owners in 36% of all businesses in the U.S.
It’s been estimated that at the current rate of change, it will take until 2085 for women to reach parity with men in leadership roles. That’s too late for Serena.
3. REVOLVING DOORS OF EMPLOYMENT
Rather than heading up her own venture, Serena is far more likely to be a contract worker—a segment of the workforce that's been projected to overtake the single-employer workforce by 2040. And she won’t just have to compete for jobs every few years. She will be in a constant cycle of promoting her services, securing a project, and promoting her services again.
"Businesses will consist of owners, talent assemblers, and contract workers for everything else," the writer Tad Milbourne has argued on Techcrunch. "Platforms will spring up that know what contractors have certain skills, what they’ve done, and whether they’re available. Contractors will get instantly matched with talent assemblers.
For my daughter's generation of working women, networking with these "talent assemblers" will likely become a top priority.
4. SHORT-TERM VIRTUAL TEAMS
In preschool, Serena likes to flit from station to station, playing with a different group of kids every five minutes. That’s good, because in 2040 she'll work on a variety of remote project teams that form and disband quickly after accomplishing a specific business outcome. She will have no physical office outside her home, yet she’ll interact with thousands of professionals of all ages and across many cultures each year.
What will Serena do on these teams? Your guess is as good as mine, but according to futurist Gerd Leonhard, she’d be smart to pursue something related to growing technology segments like data science, artificial intelligence, cognitive computing, deep learning, and robotics.
Or she could pursue a career that makes good use of human skills like imagination, curiosity, understanding, empathy, and social and emotional intelligence—like design, therapy, negotiation, or invention.
What will she want to avoid? "It’s pretty clear than hundreds of millions of jobs that are primarily routine-based, repetitive, and rules-based will increasingly be done by machines," writes Leonhard.
5. AGE-OLD GENDER BIAS
And in the narrowing breadth of roles reserved for people, women are set to continue lagging behind men despite equal educational opportunities. How come? One reason is that "unconscious bias", or the implicit people-preferences we form through socialization, is deeply embedded in the human experience. It starts early, too—research shows that it’s present in children by the age of three or four—and enters the workplace already deeply rooted in each of us.
A recent study by VitalSmarts researchers Joseph Grenny and David Maxwell found that women’s perceived competency drops by 35% and their perceived deserved compensation by $15,000 when they're seen to be assertive or forceful—violating ingrained cultural expectations for women to be caring and nurturing.
This is a problem that’s unlikely to be solved in my daughter's lifetime, even though, according to London Business School professor and The Key author Lynda Gratton, we shouldn’t lose hope. "It’s surprising how quickly societal norms can change," she says. "I see my sons being taught not to make any assumptions about what men and women do—and of course, more young people are now being brought up by working mothers. So in some parts of society, gender bias may be seen as something from the past."
Let's hope so.
6. BETTER WORK-LIFE INTEGRATION
According to the 2014 OECD Better Life Index, when compared to 35 other developed nations, the U.S. ranks as the eighth-worst country for work-life balance. The pressure to conform to standards set by countries like Germany and Denmark is likely to grow. As workforces become less global, top U.S. employers may feel more impelled to compete with foreign companies' perks in order to retain the best talent. So we may well have come a long way on work-life issues within the next 25 years.
On the other hand, future workers will be even more continuously connected to their work through technology than we are today. But by then we may have worked this way long enough that my daughter's generation will be better equipped to manage it.
Lynda Gratton believes that some work-life conflicts may be alleviated by a longer window for childbearing and more involvement from fathers. "Women may have more leeway in terms of sequencing their family and careers, and we will see more see-saw couples in which both partners take turns supporting one another."
All in all, there are likely to be more opportunities than obstacles for professional women in 2040, but there's plenty that we can do right now to make sure of that.
In 2016, millennial IT professionals aren’t working in back offices. Increasingly, they are finding themselves in the CIO role. I chatted with IDC’s Christopher Chute, who is vice president of the SMB Cloud and Mobility Practice, about his recent studyassessing how millennial CIOs are investing in digital transformation. Here’s a recap of our conversation.
Chris, what does digital transformation mean to millennial CIOs? Cloud and mobile-enabled workplaces, or something else?
That’s a big part of it. Millennial-aged midmarket CIOs interpret the digital transformation (DX) end-state as a cloud and mobile-first workplace revolving around modernized endpoints or devices, Internet of Things enablement, and a streamlined back office that outsources functions like printing. Basically, they want to IT-ify all of their business processes where it makes sense.
What were the biggest “AH HAs?” Anything you weren’t expecting?
Across every spending priority, executive-level millennials are adopting cloud-based technologies more rapidly than baby boomer and Gen X CIOs. This generation is having a profound impact on the transition from client server to SaaS (software-as-a-service) on millions of individual devices including notebooks and phablets. However, millennial CIOs are at the helm of mature IT infrastructures in which onsite and cloud systems are both supported – a hybrid approach. Millennial CIOs are prioritizing Windows 10 alongside mobile computing, and for now, they are erring on the side of keeping critical data on in-house servers while moving applications to the cloud.
It was surprising to us that millennials had moved into these CIO roles so quickly. When thinking about their customers, IT suppliers really need to factor in the age dimension.
How are millennial CIOs saving their organizations money with the hybrid approach?
Millennials are ahead of the market curve because they’ve moved the back office into the cloud. Instead of the organization hiring more people, IT buys a set of cloud services that makes existing office managers in HR and finance more productive. Millennial CIOs are also vigilant about auditing the existing infrastructure to see what onsite capabilities are really needed.
The Career Advisory Board that I established by DeVry University recently released the fifth annual Job Preparedness Indicator survey. This year’s findings indicate hiring managers are receptive to candidates changing careers, especially if their previous experience can be applied to the new position; but above all else, integrity is the No. 1 trait that candidates should possess.
Our annual research surveys 500 hiring managers in the U.S. to identify gaps between job candidate attributes and the applicant traits for which hiring managers are seeking. These gaps are identified by assessing desirable skills that are least common among entry-level, mid-level, and senior-level candidates. Here are some of our key takeaways:
Do your research, especially for a career change
Hiring managers are increasingly more willing to consider candidates changing industries, with 38 percent stating they were very likely to consider a career changer with the right skills. Eagerness to learn is an asset, as more than half of respondents want to hire people who show willingness to gain the right experience and further develop their skills.
The top concerns cited in the survey about career changing candidates included a lack of industry experience and an inability to assimilate into the organizational culture. However, 60 percent of hiring managers noted that these candidates can improve their chances of serious consideration for employment by devising a concise and sensible explanation for the change.
Attitude is everything
Interestingly, for the fifth consecutive year, hiring managers say attitude outranks skill – especially when it comes to personal ethics. This year, however, integrity was ranked the No. 1 most important trait for a jobseeker to possess at any level.
Candidates should keep in mind that hiring managers are naturally skeptical. Job seekers should be prepared to share examples of themselves being authentic and transparent in the workplace.
Adaptability is key
In today’s business environment, change and evolution are constant. Hiring managers want to see candidates demonstrate adaptability and flexibility to changing situations.
Job seekers need to articulate how they have adapted to change, with positive outcomes resulting because of their adaptive nature.
Make a good impression
Technology allows hiring managers and candidates to connect virtually; however, face-to-face interviews remains as the preferred interview method – meaning job candidates need to know how to make a connection and hone their interpersonal skills for in-person interviews.
As 46 percent of hiring managers surveyed cited strong interviewing skills as an important trait, candidates need to engage the interviewer in the conversation and not just answer their questions.
Social media can be a terrific recruiting tool, but only if you understand your audience and the laws that formally and informally govern networks. Most organizations have figured out by now that blasting generic job postings over Twitter doesn’t generate much targeted interest. The better approach requires a bit more legwork but is certainly worth it in the end.
Locate where your targets already hang out
Most organizations go directly to LinkedIn because that’s what everyone else is doing. But depending on the segment you’re trying to attract, LinkedIn may or may not be the best option. There’s also Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram, as well as hundreds of industry-specific social networks. In an article for the Cornerstone on Demand blog, Andy Headworth suggested employing Google X-ray searches to find potential candidates across networks by using relevant keywords with job titles, skills and interests. Here’s the command:
Site: linkedIn.com inurl:pub <“insert job title”>
Site: twitter.com <“insert job title”> OR <“insert job title synonym”>
Site: plus.google.com inurl: about “lives in <insert location>” <“insert job title”>
As you do more searches, you’ll notice a pattern of certain types of candidates appearing in specific places on specific networks. That’s how you’ll know where to focus your recruiting efforts.
Create audience-specific content
When using social media, it’s a best practice to engage substantially with each community before posting too much of your own content. This means commenting on others’ posts and offering feedback and ideas 5-10 times for every 1 time you submit an article or link from your company.
Your own content should present a strong and consistent employer brand. It should also be novel and relevant to the topic and/or audience. Curating interesting content from other expert sources is a smart way to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry, and using different types of content – from quotes and questions to videos and Slideshares – will prevent things from getting stale.
Here’s another important piece of advice: don’t just set and forget. Even if you have an automated system (Hootsuite, etc.) that allows you to send social media posts live at a particular time, it’s your responsibility to monitor comments and likes and engage frequently with feedback. Only then can you accurately assess if the content is fulfilling recruitment objectives.
For the last tip, check out the full post on the SilkRoad blog.
Segmentation is nothing new to our colleagues down the hall in marketing, but when it comes to recruiting, it’s a relatively new phenomenon. Just a few years ago, recruiting messages were “one-size-fits-all.” We agreed on company verbiage we wanted to share publicly and then shouted those words to anyone who would listen. Then, of course, we’d be stuck going through thousands of resumes, many of which were completely unsuitable for our open positions.
Technology, particularly social media, has made it possible to communicate easily with different groups of potential hires. We also have the ability to research candidates, and learn not just about their education and skills but also about their career goals, interests, personal motivations, and cultural references. In turn, we can create relevant recruiting messages accordingly.
In their book Workforce of One: Revolutionizing Talent Management through Customization, Accenture talent executives Susan Cantrell and David Smith suggested that organizations can achieve significant business benefits by treating each individual as a workforce of one – in other words, by offering each would-be employee a customized recruitment experience.
Cantrell and Smith recently wrote an article for Monster.com that revealed how organizations can segment potential employees by any number of variables. Here are a few of their examples:
Talent Source
P&G delivers targeted recruiting messages to potential MBA candidates when they are most receptive – at Christmas vacation, for instance, when students are less busy with academic work and starting to think about the January intern season.
Life Stage or Generation
Companies like Deloitte often reach out to different generations in an age-appropriate format. To reach millennials, for example, they encourage job candidates to speak freely with company employees on Facebook.
For more tips, have a look at the full post on the SilkRoad blog.
n a research study this year, IBM set out to uncover what’s wrong with higher education. In collaboration with the Economist Intelligence Unit, the IBM Institute for Business Value surveyed more than 900 academic industry leaders from private and public colleges and universities, vocational programs, community colleges, education service providers and corporations throughout the world.
The survey revealed concerns regarding the higher education system’s abilities to address consumer requirements. Less than half of respondents believe the system meets the needs of students (49 percent), industry (41 percent) and society (47 percent).
Why? As job preparedness studies indicate, the very skills needed for workforce success are the same skills exiting students often lack, including analysis and problem-solving; collaboration and team work; business-context communication; and flexibility, agility and adaptability. IBM reported that 70 percent of corporate recruiters experience challenges finding college-aged applicants with sufficient practical experience.
In terms of economic value, only 51 percent of industry and academic leaders believe higher education is providing value for money, and just 49 percent view it as contributing to economic growth and competitiveness.
Nevertheless, the institution of higher education isn’t going away, and it is unlikely to be significantly reformed any time soon. For this reason, it’s up to students to determine how to best use educational resources so they are fully prepared for the work world upon graduation.
Take advantage of experience-based learning. Put away your textbooks and look for real-world learning experiences like internships and apprenticeships that will allow you to practice the skills you’ve heard about in the classroom. Select professors and courses that practice “flip” teaching, where students learn basic content outside class and do homework and problem-solve in class. Work with mentors to establish metrics that objectively evaluate the impact of these programs on your skill acquisition.
Partner with potential employers. Develop relationships with corporate recruiters early in your university tenure. Inquire about on-site shadowing and job opportunities and get their input on the course work and concentrations that will be most helpful in securing and thriving in an entry-level role in their organizations. Understand their needs and acquire the right combination of skills to properly address those needs. Study their businesses and note how, where and why they’re successful and unsuccessful.
Why don’t young professionals today hold themselves to a higher standard when it comes to their attitude, work habits, and people skills? In his new book, Bridging the Soft Skills Gap, my friend and colleague Bruce Tulgan explores these five reasons:
Pretend Adulthood
Most entry-level professionals are coming to you straight from school. If they have the most in-demand technical skills, then they are probably coming from college or university; maybe graduate school. That means they’ve probably become quite accustomed to a very luxurious form of pretend adulthood. Of course, there is substantial coursework. Still, they have very little supervision and a great deal of latitude in all manner of their personal habits and conduct. They are accustomed to staying out late hanging with their friends and skipping morning meetings.
Helicopter Parents
Even after they arrive in the workplace, new college grads are still only a phone call or text away from their parents. Even worse, maybe they are on their own now, for the first time, after being reared by parents who did all the work for them of closely scheduling, managing, and supporting their every move. With their parents doing so much of the work, many young professionals never mastered the basics of taking care of themselves.
High Expectations
The customization of everything has entrenched in young professionals a fundamental expectation that individual accommodation is the norm. And surely too many people told them each and all, way too often, “You are a special case.” Their basic assumption is that they should be able to just “be themselves” and “express” their true identity at work, even if that might include stuff like failing to follow through on a day when they are “just not feeling it.”
Unpracticed Interpersonal Skills
Communication practices are habits, and most young professionals are in the habit of remote informal staccato and relatively low-stakes interpersonal communication because of their constant use of hand-held devices and social media and instant messaging. They stare at their devices too much, send too many texts, and are becoming increasingly less articulate because they have so little practice having real conversations.
Professionalism Vs Individualism
Much of what older, more experienced people might see as matters of professionalism—attitude, self-presentation, schedule, and interpersonal communication—new college grads are likely to consider highly personal matters of individual style or preference and really none of their employer’s business.
Want to learn how to cope with these young professional characteristics more effectively? Check out Bruce’s book for practical answers and advice for better preparing your young professionals for success.
