A couple of weeks ago, I conducted a workshop on “How to Lead Different Generations of Volunteers for a Minneapolis nonprofit organization. A Gen X participant (aka “a thirty-something) shared how exasperated she has become with the twenty-something who reports to her. When she gave her direct report an assignment at 4PM with the expectation that the twenty-something would not leave work until she completed the assignment, the Gen X boss was shocked when the twenty-something told her that she was leaving right now to meet her friends for a beer and would get to the assignment after that.
Fortunately, there were two twenty-somethings in the training session. One responded: “For us work and play all run together and we don’t adhere to a rigid work schedule or work from 8 , 5 and then play. We have a work ethic , it’s just different from that of older workers. Just give us the assignment, tell us when it is due, and let us do the work.
This is exactly how Google works. They have a preponderance of young workers (20 and 30 somethings) and they make the workplace very fluid. And¦they hold people accountable.
Over the last few months, I hear a lot of older workers and even some Gen X’ers bashing the Millennials or twenty-somethings saying they don’t work the way we do and that they are not prepared for the world of work. That statement begs two questions.
The first is, who says that Millennials need the same attitudes toward work? Isn’t work about getting results on time? Why do we still need rigid, out-dated policies about when one has to work? Take the advice of the Millennial in my training session: give an assignment with clear expectations, tell the employee when it is due, let them do the work, and hold them accountable for the results.
The second question concerns why is the youngest generation in the workplace unprepared for the world of work? The answer is a seriously flawed education system that only permits positive feedback, rewards just showing up rather than results, and gives so much latitude to students about when assignments are due that they have very poor time management skills and no clue what a deadline is. It is time for revolutionary thinking in education to better prepare students not only for work but also for life.