<continued from last weeks training session>
…Last time we talked about some of the challenges that are presented by the hiring of GenNOW employees. Just as a refresher then GenNOW folks are those people who graduated school, and thus received their greatest influences, within the last 7 years. Now I understand this is not how most folks will define a generation, but personally I’,m getting rather tired of the alphabet –GenX, GenY, GenZ and the ever popular ‘millennial’. Of course my question about THAT generation is, were they born in the millennium (y2K)? Or did they become ‘self aware’ in the new millennium? With my definition you can just count back from wherever you are in time, 7 years and say, well they graduated High School, or College, depending on the career field your referring to, and say “that’s GenNOW.”
From my last presentation you may have gotten the idea that I think that GenNow is full of nothing but lazy, self centered folks who have been spoiled by their inattentive parents, coddled by their colleges and now are looking for their care and feeding to be assumed by the corporate “Big Brother.” But nothing could be farther from the truth. Actually what I see GenNow as is a large group of lazy, self centered folks who have been spoiled by their inattentive parents, coddled by their colleges and now are looking for their care and feeding to be assumed by the corporate “Big Brother” with an attitude of complete and total Self Entitlement.” But I digress, the truth is that as the “fastest growing” population in our hiring midst (I love stats like that, they are completely obvious and so meaningless), we must find a way to work with them, and most importantly put a HALT to the revolving door that has become our HR department!
I have a client recently who at one time actually had their trainers tell new employees during orientation,” This company will work so hard NOT to terminate you, they would rather move you to a new team than terminate you!” Now for most folks this makes no sense until you look at the new survey produced by the Stanford Business School, that, in 2010 reported that the cost of hiring, training and replacing an $8 per hour employee within one year was approximately $3500. That doesn’t seem like much until you understand that an $8/hr employee’s yearly salary is $16k. But since most of these folks were not hourly lets look at the “middle class” of salaried employees where a $50k per year new hire COST the company an additional $20k in training and resources that first year. If you move up to entry management levels at $70k salaries you have now just DOUBLED your training costs to $40k for that first year. Meaning that most companies don’t get to ‘break even’ on a new hire for at least 6 months!
Which would be equitable if not for the fact that the majority of GenNow folks know by lunch time on their very first day, whether they will be staying on or not. As an employer your first clue is what they do on their first break, if they are on their phone texting all their friends, “You gotta get down here.” Than you can feel pretty safe that right after lunch a Kia will pull up to HR and 7 GenNow clones will fall out. However if they are already looking at your HR site or asking where the most ‘discrete’ printer is located chances are they are running off new Resumes, and this may not be back tomorrow.
Please ,do not think that by what I am about to suggest that I am leaving anyone with the idea that their entire hiring/training process needs to be restructured to coddle these folks and make them feel warm and secure. If you want that I can point you to a consultant who will gladly charge $1800 per day in order to show you how your company needs to change to accommodate and validate the new employees so as to maximize their productivity while easing their inner turmoil over having had their sanctuary violated by being made to arrive at the workplace at the unreasonable time of 10am. However I do have a few suggestions that can help you, and your new hires get the most out of life while inviting every one they know to nominate your company as the family friendly employer of the year!
need to know more? Check back next time for part 3 – what CAN we do to exponentially increase the OUTPUT from GenNOW.
Or you could just pick an excuse, it doesn’t really matter which excuse, any excuse will do, just be willing to live and more importantly DIE by that excuse.
your career very well may!