T
TALKING HEADS
Adam Kingl
Getting to grips with generation Y:
loyalty and leadership
T
he question of how to attract
and retain generation Y
(or millennials – popularly
identified as those born between
1982 and 2004) has dominated
our thinking over the past decade;
after all, this group has represented
our graduate-level employees for
about 14 years.
The emerging challenge is that
the oldest millennials are now in
their 30s and count managers,
executives, seasoned specialists
and professionals among their
number, including Facebook CEO
Mark Zuckerberg (34) and airbnb
co-founder Brian Chesky (37).
While we have already put
substantial effort into identifying
how to lead generation Y, gen Ys
are now starting to lead themselves...
and us.
To provide insights into both
challenges, I surveyed an executive
education open enrolment
programme for emerging leaders,
over five-years, asking about their
attitudes to work and leadership. This
course was a training ground for
global managers of the future;
participants were all gen Y, from 44
different countries, with an average
age of 29.
When asked whether they felt
greater loyalty to their team or to
their organisation, it is notable that
more than half (54%) of participants
said that their loyalty lay with the
team rather than the company. This
turns the classic idea of employer
value proposition on its head.
Perhaps we should instead be
asking ourselves “what is the ‘team
value proposition”?
Leaders and managers have a
growing responsibility to develop
team cohesion – a tangible
community – consciously and
proactively. After all, millennials
grew up with social media, in
the age of connection. Institutional
influence has less sway over this
generation than at any time since
the 1960s rebellion against
incumbent authority.
Today, long-term company
benefits provide nowhere near
the security they used to. As
almost all UK pensions shift from
defined benefit (final salary) to
defined contribution (a pot of
investments whose value fluctuates
with the market), companies have
lost their ‘golden handcuffs’. The
reward for longevity and loyalty is
meagre. Many corporations used
to promise promotion based on
“
Companies
have lost
their golden
handcuffs
”
tenure over decades. This too means
less to the millennial employee
than immediate opportunities
for professional development
and meaning.
If development is so important,
and most of our younger employees
value their team above all, a powerful
tool for employee engagement is
team development. Rather than
rewarding individuals with executive
training and development, there may
be more impact in developing the
intact team, building a common
vocabulary, a collective call to action,
a stronger culture, and a renewed
and sharpened focus.
According to a study by Princeton
University, more than 85% of young
people claim their top criterion in
selecting an employer is meaning
and a strong sense of purpose.
The articulation and cultivation of
purpose is therefore critical: the
power of ‘why we are here and what
it means to work here’ has never
been more important to employees.
That higher order of meaning surely
needs to be owned by team leaders
and present within the everyday
dialogue of the team.
Research by Bain & Company
discovered that employees working
for purpose-driven companies
are more than three times more
productive than their dissatisfied
counterparts. Different sources
are concluding that purpose
delivers manifold benefits from
attraction and engagement to
effectiveness outcomes.
The older segment of generation
Y, those who have attained leadership,
understand this dynamic better than
anyone. As more millennials emerge
into leadership, not only will the
‘team value proposition’ come to
the fore, but the paradigms of this
generation of community will start to
influence the corporation’s priorities,
the way it organises internally,
creates incentives and defines what
success means.
We are quickly approaching a
meridian, and once it is crossed, the
fundamental questions of company
life that we have answered from the
perspective and experience of the
20th century will be transparently
anachronistic.
Adam Kingl is regional managing
director, Europe, for Duke Corporate
Education. He is writing a book titled
Next Generation Leadership, to be
published in 2020.
March – May 2019
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