Tag Archives: Baby Boomers

What does it mean to “Mentor Up?”

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It’s easy to think that people younger than you don’t have enough knowledge to understand the “complexities” the way you do, and that may be true to a point. However, leaders today are missing a key opportunity to capture both the creativity and loyalty of young people by not giving them an opportunity to “Mentor-Up.”

The people side of the equation is where we need the Boomers and Traditionalists to mentor the Xers and Millennials. However, reverse mentorship comes into play when it comes to technology. We see a twenty-two-year old with tattoos and piercings mentoring a fiftyplus leader in a blue suit and starched color and tie.

Mentor-Up creates an informal or formal relationship where the younger person is recognized for his or her expertise in a particular area and encouraged to train older team members on that skill. An opportunity for cross-generational bonding and understanding
is to have Millennials design Mentor-Up workshops on a basic technology skill-set the team needs, and then hold a weekly mentoring session. Other formats for training can include short YouTube or internally hosted video training on high need skills like shortcuts or
how to use a piece of software more effectively.

The Era of Free Agency

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An overwhelming sense of job insecurity is a daily part of life for employees today. As a result, institutional loyalty as an automatic given is extinct. Instead of the linear progression of past models, business careers may look more like a lattice of moves that include ascents, descents, lateral moves, and holding patterns.

Rather than expecting to start with one company and end with that same company, now Xers and Millenials think as free agents. Being willing to be flexible is not always easy, but according to Deloitte research indicates the benefits of “reduced acquisition and retention costs, increased employee satisfaction and productivity, and greater loyalty through optimal career-life fit” are worth it.

Xers have had plenty of reasons and experiences that told them loyalty is a one-way street—the end of which is a dead end. They saw their Baby Boomer parents having to start over, and they began to learn the lesson that the two-way street of loyalty that their Traditionalist grandparents had talked so much about, and their Boomer parents had touted for years, was no longer there. Xers understand that there’s no reward for loyalty to a corporation. Their loyalty is to an individual, a peer or manager, not an institution. They will follow a good leader from organization to organization. Life employment with a company is not only no longer expected, but in fact, it’s rare to find a Gen Xer twenty years into his or her career still at the same organization.

Our Millennials have been creating lifestyle careers. They know the lifestyle they want. While an organization may ask them to be loyal to it, they are clear that it’s a one-way relationship.

Written Communication—Typos, Syntax, and Grammar: Oh, My!

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Today, a common area of crisis for managers is the area of written communications: proposals, e-mails, memos, and marketing materials. With the advent of personal digital devices, asynchronous text messaging and instant messaging (IMs), a new shorthand language has been created that is used extensively by Millennials.

Traditionalists and Boomers are caught feeling a little off-balance. They are scrambling to catch up with the technology savvy Gen Xers and Millennial employers/employees, who view the paradigm of technology as the ultimate solution. Graded on the three R’s as children, Traditionalists and Boomers place great value on high proficiency in Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic. Leaders frequently lament that grammar has become a significant and growing issue. Millennials are often so comfortable and proficient with “short-hand” texting that they don’t understand the grammar rules or even see the errors in their writing. Unfortunately, this issue is often hidden or further compounded by the active participation of Boomer parents who review and correct
their Millennials’ term papers and assignments before their teachers see them. Many parents have extended their support into college and then the workforce by reviewing Millenials’ resumes, proposals, pitches, and often sensitive or confidential work product. For the Millennials, it’s a bit of a jolt when their Baby Boomer boss is not only unwilling to do the same, but upset that Millenials are exposing the company to security issues.

Generationally Savvy Solution: For leaders with jobs that require strong writing skills, be explicit (not expectant) about writing requirements early on in the interview process. Ask for a writing sample in

real-time. (Yes, have the interviewee write an essay in his or her own handwriting during the interview process.) His resume, cover letter, and references have probably all been managed by his parents, and all too often will not be an accurate reflection of a work product you can expect to be delivered by the Millennial alone, but a “mash-up” of the skills of his Boomer parents, teachers, career service professionals, and even personal coaches. You can complain and get a lot of agreement from other exasperated colleagues, or you can get savvy. One path wastes a lot of time and energy, but you get to be right about how you had it harder in your day. However, you’ll still end up frustrated with an employee who makes mistakes you don’t think he should.

Social Media and Reaching Your Customers

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Most of us are used to selecting the radio or TV station we prefer to receive our news or entertainment through while dabbling in or surfing others. Generally, we return most frequently to the channel that presents the information the way we like best to hear it.

Today a myriad of available channels makes selecting the right mix for an advertiser an art. While you might find yourself trying to redirect people to the channels where you play your message, the key to getting your message heard is being willing to play/place it where the ears and eyes of your customers migrate, even if you don’t like that channel, or understand why they go there.

For example, if your customers really like country music and listen to country music 24/7, but you play your message on a classical music channel, your customers will never hear your message. Even if it’s a really good message and they would love what you have to say, you’re not playing your message on the channel they regularly listen to. Empirically, one form of music is not superior or inferior; however, each of us has our preferences. When you seek to attract, grow, and retain clients and employees, you have to learn what channels they listen to and trust.

Social media is similar. People are finding their channel of comfort. For some it’s Facebook, with the chatting and informal nature, like having a conversation in your living room. Facebook dialogues can, and often do, slip into business, but most frequently, you are chatting (as you might over beverages) with friends about their lives, experiences, and dreams.

For others, it’s Twitter with the rapid short updates, bursts of information, and quick trends that reflect the hot topics of the moment. Topics swell and crest, then ebb away, but if you missed the wave, you can always search it out later with the right hashtag (#).

YouTube is for the visually compelled. The number two search engine after Google, YouTube has found a home in the hearts of Millennials and others alike. Need to see a baby laugh, a dog skateboarding, or a kitten playing with a dolphin to brighten your day? It’s a mere click away. Want to find out some information on a random topic? YouTube’s got you covered.

Learning to appropriately harness the power of social media and use it to your advantage is key to any business’ success. Need some help dipping your toe into that pool? Just recruit a Millennial. As the first generation of digital natives, they’ve been swimming in it since they were born.

The Ostrich Approach is NOT an Option: A guide to communication styles

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While we might disagree about what communication tools are the best to use and when it is appropriate to use them, Traditionalists, Boomers, Xers, and Millennials can agree that changes in communication are reshaping every aspect of our lives. Each generation tends to see the effectiveness and appropriateness of various means of communication differently, often causing friction and fraction in the workplace.

Communication of the Individual Generations:
Technology has always been viewed as a mixed blessing. While it provides new efficiencies, and ultimately, an increase in productivity, all through history it has also brought great frustrations and challenges to the comfort levels and security of the more senior generations in the workforce.

From our twenty-first century perch, today’s fast-paced, plugged-in world contrasts so starkly from the slower paced and seemingly more personal world of yesteryear. Technological advancements zipping toward us at Mach speed have created a cultural revolution in communication and a crisis in professional and often personal interactions among the generations.

Traditionalists: For Traditionalists, face-to-face contact was a norm for isolated lives in predominantly rural, agrarian communities. Families sat around the radio and listened to recognized authorities, like Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow, deliver the news. For Traditionalists, most communication technology has been seen as a necessary evil that often gets in their way of doing things the way they’ve always been done.

Boomers: The golden age of television dawned providing passive and solitary entertainment for the individual or family. At work, information was scarce, expensive, institutionally oriented, and designed for passive use with “reasonable” turnaround times. While most Boomers never saw a computer in high school or college outside of the science classrooms, the advent of big computers had Boomers parading around their college campuses to protest the lack of recognition of their individuality wearing cards saying, “Do Not Fold, Spindle, or Mutilate.”

Gen Xers: Shaped by a time of mass marketing messages blaring on the television, radio, and now the Internet, Xers were surrounded by a culture of gadgets and tools that delivered instant results in short sound bites. With the introduction of cable programs like Sesame Street, young Xers were entertained and engaged as they learned their letters and lessons in short, diverse segments of programming specifically crafted for them.

Millennials: Millennials have grown up as the first generation of digital natives. Communication for them has always been a natural and connective tool. While their Xer siblings may have been the first to have personal computers, Millennials have had access to the Internet, cell phones, and e-mail since they were in diapers. The world of information is at their fingertips and they pride themselves on being able to find information at Mach Speed. They have naturally been making paths into global diplomacy from random e-mail penpals around the world in first grade to visiting the corners of the world through the virtual highway of the World Wide Web. For Millennials, communication is all about 24/7 access, self expression, and getting it done fast. They don’t wait for anything (or anyone). They feel they just need to give you enough information for
you to get to the meat of the matter, and that’s it.

The Exodus of the Baby Boomers

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Our workforce is currently loaded with Baby Boomers, but that will be changing soon. For many companies, having the upper hand to select and reject talent through the tumultuous economic times of 2007-2011 has been a blessing. If companies’ key managers and leaders have taken the opportunity to put into place the structures to transfer and capture the knowledge of senior executives and leaders to the organization’s knowledge repository, they are in good shape. If, however, the Boomers you employ—with their diminished 401Ks and increasing college costs for their Millennial children and underwater mortgages—have held their essential knowledge close to their chests to stay relevant, your company may face a huge problem. A balancing act is definitely at hand. Boomers are uncertain how long they will want or need to stay in their positions.

Generation X began entering the Baby Boomer-dominated workforce as youths in the 1980s with limited success. By 2006, Gen X squarely shared the prime age worker stage with mid-to-late Baby Boomers, making up 22.8 percent of the workforce. In 2016, Gen X will briefly become the majority shareholder at 33.2 percent of the workforce. Gen Xers will be 37-52 years old, and serving as both leaders and prime age workers, bridging the abyss between senior Baby Boomers and energetic, innovative Millennial rising stars.

Our Millennials (Gen Y) have entered the workforce at a slower pace than any other generation. A number of factors influencing their entrance include: personal choices, rising family incomes, competition for available jobs, and increased numbers of young people attending and staying in school longer. By 2016, they will be 17-36 years of age and will make up 32 percent of the workforce.

We will see drastic changes in company structure as the Baby Boomers retire and their coveted spots are taken by the younger generations. Fasten your seatbelts.