Millennials, Baby Boomers or just Members of your Team?

You can’t go too far these days before you bump into another stereotypical article professing to have the latest view on millennial’s in the workplace; their work ethic, their “demands”, their attitudes. Are they really different from their predecessors?  What is the real story and where is the scientific evidence that millennial are actually any different in their attitudes to work than any other generation?

And in focusing on this, are we missing the point: that we should be looking at gaining a better understanding of the whole workforce, irrespective of generation, in order to create an environment where everyone flourishes.

Instead, why don’t we focus on what we do know, that managing talent is critical to the success of any growing organisation.

Let’s focus on four key questions:

• How can we challenge our own thinking on how we do this, from ensuring that the design of the organisation takes into account the skills within; to designing roles with meaning and real purpose; to identifying and creating career pathways that provide opportunities for individual growth and development and on-the-job learning?
• How can we create development opportunities, tailored to the individual, enabling them to unlock their potential, rather than relying on rigid, “sausage machine” approaches which treats everyone the same? Is readiness for the next role really about time served or instead a collection of actual and specific experiences?
• How do we nurture an engaging and inclusive culture, where individuals and their opinions are valued and respected; where communication sits at the very heart, where performance is recognised and rewarded; where flexibility is embedded in the fabric of the organisation?
• How do we look after our people, ensuring they have the resources to do a great job, and providing safe places to work by protecting their health and wellbeing, for the good of the individuals and wider society?

There is a view that employees of all ages are much more alike than different in their attitudes and values at work and any gaps that may exist may be so small and to have existed between generations throughout history.

In the words of George Orwell, “Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it”.

So we can continue to ponder the millennial dilemma, or deal with the here and now, what’s real: attracting and retaining the best talent.

What next?

Find out how your employees really see your organisation, the culture and the opportunities by running a Staff Survey. At People Puzzles, we usually integrate our online employee surveys with some face to face interviewing, giving both quantitative and qualitative data. With a full awareness of the company vision and business plan, we use this to build a strategic People Plan to help you create a healthy, smart organisation that can deliver on its objectives.

We work with businesses that know they should be more successful but are being held back by their ‘people puzzles’. Our aim is to create a positive working environment where everyone pulls in the same direction to achieve good results, efficiency and profit. This means finding out if the right people are in place, how well they work together and if the culture is one that people want to be part of and we usually do this through our 2 – 4 day initial fact-find.

Starting by getting to know the business ambitions, personal aspirations and how the business shapes-up against these and your employees in the form of a around the 5 key HR areas of leadership, culture, skills,finding and keeping talent, and process, using our proven People Puzzles methodology. Please email us if you would like more information.