Managing Gen Y:
Supervising the Person not the Generation
By Steve Carlson, MA
Published in the February 2010 Edition of Supervision Magazine
http://www.supervisionmagazine.com
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Managing Gen-Y:
Supervisors from all types of organizations are grappling with the influx of new, younger employees into the workforce. In response to this situation, numerous books and articles in trade publications have attempted to name, define, and shed light on what behavioral characteristics this newest generation presumably exhibits. Some writers attempt to instruct supervisors on how to use generational characteristics to motivate and manage individuals born between certain years. Even a quick read through these articles shows how murky the definitions and descriptions are of this newest generation. Some call it Gen-Y because
the people born in it came after the so-called X-Generation. Others name these individuals Millennials
because of the proximity of their birth to the year 2000. Additional titles included in this confusing mix are "Gen Why?," "Internet Generation," "Gen Next," "MyPod Generation," "Baby Boomlets," "Echo Boomers," "Boomerang Generation," "Generation Now," and "Generation Waking Up."
Defining who fits within this generation is equally imprecise, and depends upon the writer. Traditionally, the amount of time between generations is about 30 years and is accepted
as the average period between the birth of parents and the birth of their offspring. Writers on the subject of Gen-Y do not necessarily follow this definition. One, for example, defines Gen-Y as those people born during a fifteen year period between the very late 1970s and the mid 1990s. Another extends it to a 20 year period between the start of the 1980s and the beginning of new millennium.
The behavioral characteristics of the generation are also wide-ranging. Some writers suggest that Gen-Y is optimistic, cautious, realistic, and having diversification expectations. Others suggest that it wants to heal the planet, while being ambitious, loyal, wanting a quest, and being networkers by
nature. Supervisors must be diligent to look behind the rhetoric of many of these books and articles.
While some articles do reference hard data, there seems to be a fair amount of sweeping generalizations made with few referencing citations beyond the authors perceptions and observations.
One researcher who has actually collected and analyzed hard data is Dr.
Jennifer Deal of the Center
for Creative Leadership in
her book "Retiring the
Generation Gap: How
Employees Young & Old
Can Find Common Ground."
She researched groups of people comprising multiple generations. Her research focused on how the individuals from different generations answered questions differently based upon their generational perceptions. She came to some interesting conclusions about the perceived values individuals of different generations possess. Her research indicated that the values between older and younger workers were not substantially different. Instead, the issue usually had to do with how individuals demonstrated those values. The only way to understand the expression values is to engage employees in order to promote true understanding. Deal concludes her book stating, "When you see a conflict that others identify as being caused by the generation gap,
you know that you need to look deeper for the real causes of the conflict."
While it is laudable that supervisors are looking for new ways to manage young people entering the work force, caution should be applied in managing such employees based predominantly upon when they were born in history. It is reasonable to assume that younger people would tend to be more adept than those in older generations at something like social networking, texting, or video conferencing. Undoubtedly, young people comprise
a large bulk of participants in social media sites. Certainly those individuals currently
in their late teens and twenties were influenced by a globalized, Post-9/11 world. Such an environment is bound to have an effect on younger individuals growing up in it. While one can reasonably make the case that younger people tend to pick up on the newest technological advances and may be influenced by economic globalization, it is another thing to develop a generational profile based upon those assertions.
The United States is a very diverse country and however the Gen-Y is defined, it is a massive grouping of individuals coming from vastly different cultural, geographic, socio-economic, ethnic, and educational backgrounds. How can anyone make truly meaningful generalizations about the
management of people from such a diverse population? Consider the response authors would receive if they wrote about how to motivate or manage individuals from a particular ethnicity/race. Such writers would be scorned, and reasonably so. Simply because people are from same generation does not automatically mean they will all share the same generational characteristics.
Over the years, our research at PDP, Inc has shown that, regardless of the generation in which people are born, they have their own unique set of behavioral characteristics and motivators. A supervisor may have a team of four Gen-Y employees. If he takes the effort, he just might find that his employees from the same
generation have vastly different characteristics. One employee might be described as direct and driven, a second be accurately described as dependable and stable, still another who is accurate and detailed, and the fourth one who prides herself on being persuasive and influential. While all these employees may be extremely tech savvy, knowing how to load an iPod, tweet their thoughts to world, or text a mile-a-minute, they are not all motivated by the same things. Nor will they respond identically if they are managed simply based upon how their generation is supposed to act. In fact, how individuals leverage their technological skills has everything to do with the characteristics that make up who
they are. Gen-Y should not be viewed solely as a monolith with specific characteristics, but as a group of unique individuals engaging and being influenced by an increasingly globalized society.
How does a supervisor make use of this kind of information in her actual work setting? How does she understand the motivators and characteristics of her younger employees? The answer is not as hard as it might seem. Instead of relying upon ideas of what a stereotypical GenY-er wants, the manager needs to engage the actual employees
she has. This is done
by managing
performance. The
supervisor sits down briefly with her younger employees to clearly outline her expectations of them for the coming months. She outlines the competency factors required for success in the employees unique position and how performance will be measured. Specific behaviors relating to particular tasks should be clearly described.
The supervisor then works with her employees to determine what their unique motivators are
and how as the manager she can express them in a way that fits within their values.
She could simply ask a question like,"Describe what is or would be most motivating to you in your present situation (e.g. harmony or taking risks)." She asks her employees to determine three or four of these motivators and
mechanisms the manager can provide to her employees to use to simply check off different motivators. With both the managers expectations and employees motivators all known up-front, the supervisor can better manager her employees on a day-to-day basis. Because of the mutual understanding that is developed between a younger employee and the supervisor, there will be no surprises when it comes time to provide feedback or short cut to understanding employees,
performance appraisal to her employees.
Supervision and management have always been hard work. Using a generational profile approach to motivating younger workers may sound like a great particularly given the amount of recent articles written about the subject. However, caution must be exercised in how supervisors generalize the characteristics of their younger employees. No matter how much we want to generalize, young people are still individuals with different motivators. Effective management will always require great effort. That is why good managers continue to be such a great asset to organizations of every kind.
For more information on how IAS can help you with your people issues, contact us at info_integratedadvising.com
