There’s much ado about Millennials these days — how to manage them and work with them.
Before we delve into that subject matter, however, it’s worth noting a few things about them. Millennials are the group of people born roughly from 1980 to 2000. A business that specializes in training and research for managing Millennials — Coaching Millennials — pinpoints the birth years as 1982-2004. By that measure, the oldest is 35; the cohort is made up mainly of people in their 20s and even teens. That’s nearly 98.5 million Americans, or 31% of the U.S. population, according to a U.S. Census estimate in 2012.
A Pew Research analysis of the 2015 U.S. workforce population put the percentage of Millennials at 35%. The figure will be 75% in 10 years, according to business consultant Dan Negroni. “They are certainly a force to be reckoned with,” said Negroni in a recent interview published in Forbes magazine.
It’s no secret that Millennials get a bad rap. A little over a year ago, Saturday Night Live poked fun at them in a sketch. It began with a young woman texting frantically on her smart phone, approaching her boss and asking for a promotion.
How long have you been with the company? asked the boss.
“Three days,” she said.
Time magazine described a litany of flaws for Millennials in a 2013 article: selfish, narcissistic, fame-obsessed, relying on feelings as their moral compass, stunted development, lazy.
“What Millennials are most famous for besides narcissism,” noted the Time report, “is its effect: entitlement.”
Nevertheless, they have their cheerleaders. Tom Brokaw, who wrote about the Greatest Generation, calls Millennials the Wary Generation. He praised them in the Time report for their cautious approach to life decisions.
The same report cited Millennials for many positive attributes, like earnestness and optimism. Millennials aren’t rebels; they embrace the system. They are “pragmatic idealists.” They are pro-business and financially responsible.
The Millennials have given rise to a cottage industry of consultants who specialize in catering to businesses that want help understanding and managing their Millennial employees. This has led to a whole movement on coaching Millennials in the workforce.
Bruce Pfau, a partner at KPMG, the global professional service and accounting firm, who advises clients on human resources strategy, says Millennials really want the same thing the rest of us do. Writing for the Harvard Business Review a little over a year ago, he commented, “A growing body of evidence suggests that employees of all ages are much more alike than different in their attitudes and values at work. To the extent that any gaps do exist, they amount to minor differences that have always existed between younger and older workers throughout history and have little to do with the Millennial generation per se.”
One example he cited was an analysis by a group of researchers for George Washington University and the Department of Defense. They conducted 20 studies examining generational differences. They concluded that meaningful differences among generations probably do not exist in the workplace. Furthermore, they suggested that minor differences are likely attributable to such factors as stage of life more than generational membership. They went so far to say that “targeted organizational interventions addressing generational differences may not be effective.”
As Elspeth Reeve wrote in The Atlantic in 2013, “It’s not that people born after 1980 are narcissists, it’s that young people are narcissists, and they get over themselves as they get older.”
Pfau cited other studies as well as the experience of KPMG before suggesting that “Millennial-specific employee engagement strategies” are a waste of effort, time and money. “They would be far better served to focus on factors that lead all employees to join, stay and perform at their best.”
What are those factors? We’ll return to Pfau’s thoughts in a moment.
First though, a bit of news that does not bode well for the pallet and sawmill industry, and it comes from an article earlier this year on the www.coachingmillennials.com website. The demand for blue collar workers is in dramatic decline, and the blue-collar workforce is ‘graying’ — those employees are aging. As industries like construction, transportation and warehousing continue to grow and add jobs, it is critical that they are able to attract, train and retain Millennials.
Unfortunately, Millennials are not much interested in blue collar jobs. Thirty-five percent of people aged 18-24 worked in blue collar jobs in 1980, according to a George Washintion University study in 2013. The figure dropped to 19% by 2010. Blue collar jobs, and the article also cited blue collar jobs in manufacturing, have a stigma that turns off Millennials.
If you can find Millennials to fill jobs, there’s another problem. A report by the Educational Testing Service in 2015 showed that Americans born after 1980 are trailing their peers in 21 other countries in literacy and numeracy.
Madeline Goodman, a researcher for Educational Testing Service, told Fortune magazine the scores of American Millennials “were abysmal.”
Where does that leave pallet and sawmill businesses looking to fill unskilled labor jobs, positions that require some skills, and those of an even more technical nature?
The best solution seems to be education and communication to bridge the skills gap. Good leaders need to communicate expectations, such as how a job is to be done, deadlines, quality checks, safety considerations, etc. You want to make sure that workers know how they will be measured and what is a sign that they are doing a good job. You also can’t take for granted that workers know basics about handling tools, lumber, working with wood or other skills that may have been more natural in previous generations.
Good leaders cast vision and create objectives that workers can rally around. But you shouldn’t baby younger workers either. Have high expectations for the workers, and communicate your expectations clearly to them. It will help instill into employees a sense of pride and self-confidence they may not get elsewhere. Set your sights high, and your employees will respect you for it and respond positively.
Look for the value that these workers bring to your company and contribute to the world. It may take some time and effort to discover, but getting to know your employees on a personal level can help reduce employee turnover and contribute to the long-term success of your business. Seek to have a positive effect on their lives.
Before passing along some other suggestions from Pfau and a colleague, it’s also worth noting a couple examples of companies in the forest products industry that have teamed with educational institutions to provide training for workers and equip them with skills.
Idaho Forest Group has collaborated with North Idaho College, Lewis Clark State College and other wood products manufacturers to train 200 sawmill workers over the next two years. The state’s Department of Labor is footing the costs of most of the training program, and mill operators contribute funding and in-kind donations.
On the other side of the country, this summer Maine launched its first post-secondary program to train people to operate mechanized logging equipment. The training program is sponsored by three Maine community colleges, the Professional Logging Contractors of Maine, and industry partners like Caterpillar Forest Products and Nontax, the John Deere subsidiary.
Pfau and Ira Kay authored a 2002 book, The Human Capital Edge. They found that whether you consider generation, race or gender, employees generally want the same things from work. They cited four key questions that continue to recur when people decide to join an organization, give their best effort, or stay. These four questions “appear to stand the test of time,” noted Pfau. The four questions are:
1. Is it a winning organization I can be proud of?
Employees want to take pride in the company they work for. And they want to work for a successful, high-performing company and for leaders with competence, integrity and vision.
2. Can I maximize my performance on the job?
Nearly all employees want to be able to do a good job. They want to work in a place that will make the most of their skills and provide the resources, information, authority and training to perform at their best.
3. Are people treated well economically and interpersonally?
People want to be respected at work, and valued and treated fairly. They want their opinions to count, and they want their contributions recognized and rewarded financially and psychologically.
4. Is the work itself fulfilling and enjoyable?
People want to enjoy the work they do and the people with whom they work. They want to derive a sense of meaning and purpose from what they do every day.
Wrote Pfau: “Companies that create environments in which employees answer each of these four questions with a resounding ‘Yes’ – regardless of their generation – are those most likely to win the war for talent.”
