Millennial Generation: We raised these kids, why can't we manage them?

“We raised these kids, why can’t we manage them,” was the salient quote from the recent lecture by Ron Alsop at the quarterly breakfast meeting provided by the Samford Brock School of Business. Alsop is certainly a noted and long time writer, and you may recognize his name as the business editor for the Wall Street Journal. He speaks frequently on the topics of corporate reputation, business education, and career development, but on this day, we learned about the “Millennial Generation.”


In his book entitled, “The Trophy Kids Grow Up,” Alsop writes at length on his research concerning the dynamic known as the millennial generation. Millennials are young adults born between 1980 and 2001. They are heralded to comprise a full 35% of our workforce in the next three years. Now is the time to appreciate how this huge driver of our workforce has been formed and what they have to offer. But first, take a pause and appreciate how they are different, and it doesn’t take long to see that the differences are marked.

Looking back since the early 1920’s we have seen several transitions in workforce trends. The Traditionalists (born 1925-1945) are clearly some of the most patriotic of our work force. The Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) are those workaholics like me who take on way too much and wonder why there is so little free time. We love the effort and enjoy the output of our labors. Following the Boomers is the Generation X’ers (born 1965-1979) and they have a trend to tech savvy and latch key independence. Enter now to the workforce and the playground, the Millennial. This group has high self esteem born in the “they all get a trophy” competitive environment. Tech savvy? Please. They are tech savvy, multi-tasking super geeks with limited work place loyalty, but a parallel high civic mindedness. Dutifully watching over their millennial off spring is the seemingly ever present Helicopter parent. The Helicopter parent has been known to not only arbitrage for grades on behalf of their child in high school, but to attend a college interview when the child had a sporting event, and even ask to sit in on a job interview or two. Alsop reported parents that had requested that their travel to their child’s job interview also be covered, and how about an occasional “Parent Day” at work for good measure. This is truly an amazing shift as Alsop reminisced about us Baby Boomers being dropped off for college with a kiss, a wave, and a “see you at Thanksgiving.”

The young millennial in your office or home that are now nine years of age to thirty years of age are a force to be reckoned with as they are driven to succeed, prone to job hopping, and yet have very close parental ties. They seem to be less cynical at work than their predecessors, and because they like their parents, they also seem to like and get along with their managers. They are highly concerned with work life balance, and will take less money in the trade off for more fun. In a world where global competition is the name of the game, we would be advised to keep this in perspective as their Asian Millennial friends report that they are in fact less concerned with work/life balance and are ready to work. Time will tell, but this dynamic may change with work choice scarcity in the current recession for our job hopping, fun seeking employees.

A typical Millennial will state that they look at the work place as a social organization, not just a job, and they need to have fun. They report to be very credentials driven which is not surprising given their high self esteem. This group does not seem to have patience “paying their dues” and are not likely to desire the true entry level job. (It is this writers opinion that this is a great opportunity for the displaced Boomer who just love to work.) This seems to have been born in the environment where the driver is to get into a “good” college and all of the competition that goes along with this. Alsop reported that one parent interviewed had kept a spreadsheet of all their child’s accomplishments since kindergarten for inclusion in the interview process for college. Thus this group views the world as a “meritocracy” where you merit the advancement, and as such they are constantly asking for feedback. The challenge for employers is going to be a big one to retain the talent once you invest in the training of this group. Millennials want to be casual and enjoy work, and they make it clear that their lives come first, and jobs come second. Where did they get this idea? Probably from us workaholic Baby Boomers that give everything to work because “it matters”, only to find out in this current economy, you can in fact not just be replaced, but displaced and the company can do more with less.

There is a saying, “God gave you kids, because he isn’t finished with YOU yet.” This may be worth thinking about as we spend time raising and managing our Millennials.

Birmingham Economic Forecast 2010

I recently attended the 2010 Economic Forecast presented by the Birmingham Business Journal and hosted by Samford University’s Brock School of Business. Brought together for this event was an esteemed panel of guests to include Mickey Gee, Executive-in-Residence at UAB, Cynthia Lohrke, Professor at the Brock School of Business, John Norris, Managing Director for Oakworth Capital Bank, and Jacksonville University Associate Professor of Economics, Christopher Westley. This panel fielded a variety of questions concerning opinions and predictions of the Birmingham marketplace for 2010. To follow is a summary.

Consumer confidence appears to be rising and is expected to continue into 2010. Of course this is good news for the retail industry, and December numbers will be out soon to show exactly how 2009 finished. In general, retail department stores have been seen as surviving the holiday season by creating value as opposed to deep discounting as a manner of creating sales for the holiday season. It was noted that 74% of the US economy is driven by consumer spending, and has seen a low of 61% last summer. The drop in consumer spending was due to the increase in unemployment, and decline in consumer confidence. Unemployment for the state has hovered around 10.2% and 9.9% for Birmingham. Some areas of Alabama are experiencing real unemployment of upwards to 25%. Interestingly 16-17% of workers at this time are part-time employees. News that Joe Consumer is pulling out of this tail spin is great to hear. But, a move to full employment according to this group will be driven by the part-time workers that shift back to full-time employment first, followed by hiring of the unemployed. Any businesses that support the Temporary job sector should be a good bet for growth in this type of marketplace. The company ManPower was sited as one of the top ten businesses in 2009. During this time of employment unrest there does seem to be a silver lining. Baby Boomers are not taking on more debt during this recession, and the savings rate has started to increase.

A discussion of the role of Federal stimulus dollars that may find its way to Alabama centered on recommendations as to where funds should be allocated. Most agreed that there has been no real stimulus money impact as yet, with most of the funding going toward government stabilization. In specific, the monies have gone to government expenditures for education, health and human services, and even 4% to transportation (considered a non-business expense). Stimulus dollars that go to support large companies with government contracts will prove to be a frustrating competitive playing field for any small business that competes with them. The real need for use of these funds is to fund real business expenditures to drive the economy along. Most on the panel agreed that now is the time to invest in innovation and to take the time to build strong strategy. In particular technology is strong for software development, and it was interesting to learn that we have an iphone developer right here in Alabama. It has been suggested that there is a need to invest in wireless and broadband infrastructure. In general, most agreed that the stimulus money has not altered the economy that much, just simply moved the demand curve forward. Eventually, the same costs will still be due. The 787 billion dollars that have been tagged are actually slated to be spent this year, not last year, which just so happens to be an election year.

Though Washington has released monies to support small business loans, access to these funds will continue to be restrictive with some loosening of credit by the end of 2010. Amazingly, it was stated that private sector job growth has been at zero since 2001. Any growth seen has been produced by “government growth” as created by what has been called the warfare state and the welfare state. The concern here is that this is not real capital creation, and is most likely not sustainable.

Opinions were raised with respect to the Jefferson County Business License tax as a revenue source for Jefferson County. Essentially, the point was made that most counties that have an occupational tax do not do well. With regard to business friendly strategy, the panel reminded us that a tax increase of 1% is still a tax increase. Of course the full impact of the healthcare bill remains to be seen too.

So how does a business owner continue to break ahead of the pack and earn the biggest gains as we pull out of the recession? The good old fashioned way: Customer Service, reliable experience, and a heavy dose of ethics. One certain area for growth in the near future is a demand for graduate level education. This higher level of education will help create and drive technology growth, energy growth (specifically green), healthcare industry and technology (contingent on the healthcare bill outcome), and most fascinating to this writer is the recommended need to learn Mandarin as a second language. Bottom-line for Alabama: We need to have academic specialization, think globally, and bring the business opportunity and job creation home. We will need workers with high knowledge and critical thinking skills. Not surprisingly there is a direct correlation between education levels and per capita income.

As you think on some of these opinions and thoughts concerning developing and changing business here in Alabama, ask yourself how this applies to your position. Are you using knowledge to leverage your position? Are you adaptive to technology? Does your strategy still embrace and compliment your mission? Do you have a corporate culture which leverages the least costly business strategy available which is concrete customer service? Lastly, are you involved with your City council, local government and Chamber of Commerce? If not, then start today. The positive interaction between your business and these leadership entities will be the driving force behind strong economic development.

Good customer service is free, and is as simple to implement as a change in attitude. So remember, take care of your customers, or someone else will.