Managing the Y Generation

Source: Exec Digital Canada

Date :13/03/2008 05:51:50

If we try to make them fit the molds of postwar America, the 46 million new workers that will replace the 76 million retirees won’t be able to deliver. Is it time to let go of an entire generation?

Written by John O’Hanlon

Patronizing is a kind word to use about advertising categories – they betray a mindset akin to eugenics. As someone who has a problem with being described as being a member of the public, I really hope that the upcoming generation will resist mass customization pressure from marketers and realize the potential of their individuality. Otherwise they’ll just be spoilt and selfish.

Don’t let’s get too excited about GenY. Much as advertiser’s entertainers and recruiters are babbling about them, by the ‘official’ definition the youngest of them are 13 and the oldest only 23, so not many of them have much influence yet. For those who prefer the broader definition, born in the 80s and 90s; the most ancient GenYer is 28 though. Most of these guys aren’t what you’d call leaders, but they sure have a lot of money to spend.

Diversity and perversity

The other day, at a networking event for entrepreneurs, I met Max Su, who just graduated from Penn. ‘What are you hoping to do?,’ I asked him. He explained that he was considering offers from JP Morgan, Ernst & Young and Dresdner Kleinwort – inclining toward the first of these because it was reputed to be hardest to get into, and he liked its corporate stance on diversity.

He left me puzzled. In his impeccable suit, with his quaint mixture of 21st century street jargon and corpspeak, he seemed to represent a whole generation of university graduates, who far from being disruptive, seem only too anxious to perpetuate and extend the establishment values of the ‘milk round’ employers. As an American of Chinese origin perhaps he had issues around diversity, though I doubt it.

Goldman Sachs declares: “Our goal is to prepare our people to work more effectively in an increasingly diverse, multicultural business environment,” and goes on to talk about age, disability, religion and sexual orientation. JP Morgan bleats that: “Being a first-class firm also means doing ‘good’, in addition to doing well. JP Morgan has a proud tradition of being a good corporate citizen around the world. We dedicate significant financial and human capital to supporting issues and causes important to our business and our people.”

Worthy, yes. Worth the paper they are written on, no. There are laws to cover all that stuff. Doing good might conceivably be synonymous with doing well. Yet these companies are falling over each other to sell their environmental, multicultural and inclusivity credentials in a way that is embarrassingly right on. Don’t they realize that all these kids learned this stuff at school?

An integrated life

Look at the companies that have at least considered banning staff from using social networks in office time: Citigroup, JP Morgan, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Bear Sterns, UBS. Call that cool...

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