Jul04Perspectives

A spaceship has landed in your employee parking lot. The ladder is down and the beings aboard are gradually descending into your park. Although they appear to have assumed human form, their clothing, hair, and skin adornments are obviously not of this world. Communication is a major barrier as they speak in a language all their own, and they seem to have difficulty understanding your requests. They claim to have come in peace, but you are not so sure.

Your first reaction is to rush to the spaceship and close the door in hopes these aliens will return to their own galaxy; but alas, they are too great in number. Then it dawns on you—you’re feeling the rumblings of an impending labor shortage for the summer and these aliens are in fact your new recruits.

Ready or not, here comes Generation Why? And they’re not just coming through the front gates of your park; they’re now on your payroll. And they’ve arrived with a whole new set of attitudes, values, and beliefs.

Although they’ve been referred to as Millennials, Echo Boomers, Nexters, and The Net Generation, I’ve arrived at the term Generation Why? to reflect their most basic tendency; e.g., their inherent, continual, and provocative questioning of all time-honored standards and institutions. Instead of doing as they are told, these post-Generation X-ers bluntly ask:

• Why should I respect you?
• Why should I play by your rules?
• Why can’t we do things my way?
• Why do I have to adhere to your
dress code?
• Why do I have to wait 30 days for
a raise?
• Why should I care if the guests at this park are having a good time?

If you’ve had any experience in employing, supervising, or managing young people over the past several years, you know that referring to today’s seasonal young employees as “aliens” isn’t all that outrageous. After all, they do not see life—much less a job—like you or anyone from previous generations do. However, because your success hinges upon their performance, you cannot afford to look past them or hope that they will mature out of their attitudes and behaviors toward work.

Gen Why-ers don’t do well with monotonous routines and lengthy processes. They have been known to suffer a complete meltdown if a job or a task becomes boring. However, Gen Why-ers are extremely techno-savvy, great at creative problem solving, and they excel when working in teams. Their internal wiring is so sharp that you will not only have to reconfigure your recruitment and retention strategies, but you also have to re-examine your whole system of training and managing young employees.

It takes more than attractive wages to entice and keep the best and brightest Gen Why-ers. To gain a competitive advantage and recruit and retain a stable full of capable, competent, and innovative young workers, your organization will need to rethink, retool, and reload.

So, forget about “the good old days” and how things used to be. Realize what you have to work within today’s world and dedicate your time and energy toward maximizing your resources. You can’t ignore Generation Why?, nor can your business survive without them. They are here, and they are now. Naturally, this takes time, patience, and empathy, but if Gen Why-ers discover that you have a genuine interest in them and their future and that you are not trying to manipulate them for your own purposes, they’ll astound you with their productivity, commitment, and dedication.

Training Alone Isn’t Enough
I was recently at a fast-food restaurant that employed Gen Why-ers at its counter. “I'll have a hot apple pie and a vanilla shake,” I said. The young teen who took my order replied, “Fine, sir. Would you like any dessert with that?”

While amusing, it’s obvious the manager had trained his employees how to reply but had failed to educate them with how to relate.

Today’s managers are so caught up in the act of training their young employees that they often forget to teach them. As a result, their front line can blurt out a properly formatted response to a predetermined set of questions, but when the formula is tampered with, things can go awry.

Consider this: Americans demand that our schools prepare students with all the right answers for standardized tests. In the process, we’ve failed to teach them how to respond when the right answers don’t fit the situation. (“Would you like dessert with that?”) Thus, business now inherits entry level employees who can pass a skills test but who have no idea how to solve problems and think on their feet.

To avoid cold robotic responses and reduce mindless mistakes from young employees, managers and supervisors must make time to teach the reason instead of merely training the task. When your young employees comprehend the purpose and are plugged into the mission, they’ll unleash their boundless talents to accomplish a mutually beneficial goal.

To connect a deeper level and unleash their raw talent, follow this three-step formula:

1. Share the Vision.
Don’t assume your new recruits arrive for work with an innate knowledge of your business’s infrastructure and goals. They’ve been to amusement parks before, but they’ve only seen them from the patron perspective. No one’s taught them what it takes to make your business successful.

Your Gen Why? employees—although appearing to be full of street smarts—probably do not know that careless waste can adversely affect every employee or that a dissatisfied guest will tell an average of nine other people about their negative experience. It’s critical to orient your frontliners and share with them the process of profit making so they will have a clear idea of where their paycheck originates and how their performance can make it grow.

2. Share the Expectation.
Be very clear on exactly what their role is and how you want them to participate in the bigger picture. Leave nothing up to the imagination. Don’t just give them the “want to,” share the “how to” strategies so they know how to meet and beat the expected levels of performance and guest service.
Question your policies and procedures, and if you cannot justify something, change it or throw it out. In the process, you’ll streamline the bureaucracy out of your workplace, leaving behind the really important policies and procedures that cannot be compromised.

3. Share the Rewards.
If Generation X was the “me generation,” then Generation Why? is the “what’s in it for me?” generation. Make certain that your compensation plan is structured so that growth and success generate rewards for the front line. Don’t get caught up in the archaic thinking that says, “getting a paycheck should be a sufficient reward for the part-timers!”

Rethink and Retool for This Summer
The best way to stay ahead of the curve and anticipate the kind of working environment your young employees want is to create a connection to their world. Dedicate yourself to learning to speak Gen Why? Read everything you can about them. On occasion, listen to their music, watch their movies and TV shows, and read their magazines. Watch Gen Why? in the malls and pay attention to them as they work in the restaurants and stores you frequent. When you get the chance, ask them questions and listen to their responses. Why should you go to the trouble of doing all this? Because how can you lead them if you do not understand them?

Sure, making these changes is easier said than done. But it is well worth the investment of effort. And don’t be surprised if you find this new management style and approach reveal your Generation Why? workers to be the brightest, most creative, hardest working, and most loyal employees on your payroll. They certainly have the potential to be just that! The key to unlocking this potential?

Remember what every alien says when it first makes contact, “Take me to your leader!”

That, my friend, is you.

Eric Chester, president of Generation Why?, is an award-winning keynote speaker, trainer, consultant, co-author of seven books for teens, and the author of Employing Generation Why: Understanding, Managing, and Motivating Your New Workforce. He will be the featured keynote speaker at the 2004 IAAPA conference in Orlando and can be contacted through the web site www.generationwhy.com, or by calling 800/304-ERIC.