Millennials in the workplace

A quick Google search of ‘millennials in the workplace’ brings up results such as:

  • How to understand Millennials in the workplace;
  • What Do Millennials Really Want at Work?;
  • 11 tips For Managing Millennials

These results speak to a wider trend throughout the workforce – that many workplaces struggle to lead and retain millennial workers.

There is some debate over exactly what demographic millennials are, but generally the term is understood to mean anyone born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s. They are the first generation to come of age in the new millennium. This same demographic is also referred to as Generation Y.

Unsurprisingly, this generation is more technologically savvy than any of the preceding generations. Broadly speaking, they are more politically liberal than other generations, with a strong focus on social awareness and individual responsibility. And they have brought to the workforce skills that many organisations struggle to utilise and expectations that they fail to meet.

Millennials place a high value on work-life balance and often expect an employer to provide them with ongoing learning and development, career progression and mentoring and strong leadership. Only 2% of millennials view a career as a job for life, compared with 12% of other generations in the workforce. On average, Generation Y anticipate staying with an employer for roughly two to four years, while the average for the remainder of the workforce is over six years.

In turn they are accused by older generations of being entitled, narcissistic and unfocused, sometimes referred to as “Generation Me”.

Leadership expert, author and speaker, Simon Sinek, received a lot of attention for an interview he did in 2016 addressing millennials in the workplace. Sinek spoke about how he is regularly asked why millennials are un-leadable and why so many organisations struggle to meet their needs and hold on to them. Sinek outlined four main reasons why he thinks this is happening.

The first is the style of parenting many millennials were raised in. Sinek argues many of that generation were raised with the attitude “you are special and you can have whatever you want just because you want it”. Their self-esteem was massaged through “participation awards”, which ultimately devalued the effort more worthy award-winners and only made the kids who do poorly feel embarrassed.

Sinek suggests that this inflated sense of self-worth is shattered upon entering the workforce which then fosters low self-confidence and self-doubt.

Sinek’s second explanation is millennial’s unique relationship with technology. For many millennials their use of social media and mobile phones is a source of dopamine, a naturally-occurring neurotransmitter that helps control the brain’s reward and pleasure centers. Dopamine elevation is typically associated with alcohol and drug addiction. The pleasure sensation that the brain gets when dopamine levels are elevated creates the motivation for us to proactively perform actions that can recreate the sensation. Over time, by artificially raising the amount of dopamine the brain perceives is “normal,” the drugs – or social media – create a need that only they can meet. Sinek proposes that because many millennials have no restrictions set on social media use they are learning to seek validation and support from devices, not people. This can lead them to feel very isolated in the workplace, unable to form the type of relationships with their peers that would otherwise help support them.

Sinek’s third explanation is impatience. Millennials have grown up in a world of instant gratification. They’ve never had to learn to wait. They then apply this desire for instant gratification to jobs and relationships.

And then millennials’ relationships with self-esteem, social media and instant gratification are all put into play with Sinek’s fourth reason – the corporate environment. Millennials, without the skills to cope with stress and form connections, and in constant search for immediate results, are placed in corporate environments where their well-being is valued less than profit-making.

He argues it is the responsibility of the current leaders to help millennials by changing the corporate environment. “They blame themselves… but it’s not them. It’s the total lack of good leadership in our world today that is making them feel the way they do.”

Below are some methods for shifting your workplace environment to best welcome millennials, and make the most of their unique skills.

Enable training and career development

Highly-educated millennials have the opportunity to make their jobs a source of personal pride and fulfilment – they are more inclined to view their job as a method of “making an impact” on the world and providing meaning, rather than merely a means to make money. They want to grow, and react poorly to any sense of staticity or stagnancy. Rather than managers and leaders seeing this as a burden, it can be approached as an indication of millennials’ commitment to – and genuine investment – in the role.

Develop a welcoming workplace culture

Snide and petty comments about millennials’ perceived laziness and lack of focus does not create an environment millennials will particularly enjoy. Remember that every generation has had gripes about the generation that comes after it. Instead, take advantage of the millennials’ comfort and ease with working in teams. Make the most of their tech-savviness and ability multi-task. Millennials potential short-comings are usually paired with a skill other generations don’t have – don’t miss out what these skills can offer you workplace.

Adapt your management style

Much is made of millennials’ delicate egos and over-dependence on praise. But it is worth recognising the value of regular recognition of good work – for all your staff members, not just millennials. Rather than dismiss millennials’ needs as childish and unsupportable in the corporate world, look to what aspects of their upbringing and experience could have value. Don’t resist change simply on the grounds that it is unknown – instead make use of what’s now available to you.

Finally, it is important to note that any broad generalisations about an entire generation of people are inevitably going to paint only the broadest brush strokes, and for many these characterisations of millennials will be far from the truth. Indeed this portrait has been regularly criticised for only really encapsulating the traits of largely white, affluent millennials in the Western world. It’s therefore crucial that this commentary be taken with a grain of salt.

The problem with the open-plan office and how to fix it

The open-plan office: collaborative and egalitarian or noisy and unproductive? Whatever your view, it’s a layout many Australian workers are familiar with.

The open-plan office developed in the 1950s in post-war Germany and then swept across the corporate world. Its two perceived benefits are cost and increased collaboration.

There is no doubt that, on paper, open-plan offices offer the cheaper option, as you can accommodate more people in a smaller area to cut down on your office space. In the United States, the average office space per worker fell from 20.9 square metres in 2010 to 16.3 square metres in 2012. In Manhattan, where real estate is at a premium, each worker occupies just 11.1 square metres.

The open-plan office’s other selling point is that it fosters a flow of ideas between employees that would be impossible if they spent their working days isolated in private offices. However recent research casts doubt on this claim.

Instead of improving communication in the workplace, one Australian study found that the open-plan office, and its latest variant, hot-desking, had a negative impact on colleagues’ relationships.

Instead of improving communication in the workplace, one Australian study found that the open-plan office, and its latest variant, hot-desking, had a negative impact on colleagues’ relationships. The researchers found that offices occupied by one, two or three people offered “the best situations for workers”.

Another study that surveyed workers who moved from private to open-plan offices had a similar conclusion. “The benefits that are often associated with open-plan offices did not appear: cooperation became less pleasant and direct and information flow did not change,” wrote the authors.

A 2013 study found that any benefit from increased interaction between staff was wiped out by losses due to noise and lack of privacy. Employees who work in open-plan offices also tend to report higher levels of stress, take more sick days, and are less productive.

But if we accept that for cost reasons the open-plan office is here to stay, what improvements can be made to address its shortcomings?

 

modern office

The use of ‘segmented space’ is a growing trend in contemporary office design. (Photo: iStock)

One answer is the ‘segmented office’, a design philosophy “based on the idea that different spaces are needed to support different tasks and different personalities,” explains Libby Sander, a lecturer at Bond University, in a piece published at The Conversation.

A segmented office might have small rooms where people can work uninterrupted, larger rooms for meetings, communal tables for informal catch-ups, standing desks for brainstorm sessions, and phone-free quiet zones. Workers move around the office to suit their different activities.

The segmented office is not the perfect solution, however. Sanders reports that employees often feel frustrated having to carry a laptop, cords and other work materials around the office, and annoyed when they can’t locate a staff member. A shortage of rooms and private spaces was another common gripe.

 

CASE STUDY

DEAKIN UNIVERSITY CADET BUILDING Deakin University CADET building

Deakin University’s new $55 million Centre for Advanced Design in Engineering Training (CADET) building is an office-free zone.

Designed by Gray Puksand and built by Cockram Construction, its workspaces comprise a series of ‘blended environments’ designed along activity-based working principles to use space more efficiently and effectively.

“It’s understanding what activities go on and then designing spaces to suit those particular activities,” explains Kean Selway, chief operating officer at Deakin University (an AIM Affiliate Member). “[But] it’s not just a case of pulling the walls down and everything works. We have to be very careful about how we zone certain activities.”

 

 

 

 

There are, for example, quiet zones that cater for people who need to concentrate. “You can go into that area with the expectation that you can sit in silence and you won’t be distracted or interrupted by people. You don’t need to build offices and walls and locked doors to create that quiet environment,” says Selway.

“At the other end of the spectrum, there are highly collaborative spaces where the table heights are raised to almost a bench height, and the seats are raised as well. It’s a far more active, almost stand-up environment where people can move around easily and collaborate and talk around tables.”

Privacy – or the lack of it – is another issue. Deakin University has replaced its landlines with mobile phones, so people can walk and talk. “We have a range of rooms that people can step in and out of to have a private conversation,” says Selway. “It’s a very dynamic use of space.”

Meeting rooms that lie empty for most of the day have been replaced by “collaboration spaces”. But there are still a few meeting rooms available, where “you can close the door and have a formal, private meeting with typically between four and 14 people,” he says. And with Deakin University spread across four separate campuses, they’re equipped with video-conferencing and presentation equipment, “As a university, we use video-conferencing equipment as a natural extension of everything we do,” explains Selway.

“Everyone has ended up with much more functional, more beautiful, more usable, more enjoyable spaces because there’s been this shift in practice from ‘I own’ to ‘we share’.”

Small power point-free meeting rooms – “so people can’t charge up their laptops and their phone and spend hours in there alone”– complement the more formal meeting spaces.

The CADET building also aims to cater for people’s different working styles. “A person may want privacy for part of the day, or part of the week, but not all of the week,” says Selway. Those who want desks have them, he adds. “Some people have a highly reliable, predictable work pattern and workflow, so… staying in the same place all the time actually works highly effectively because that’s what they do day in, day out.”

Where people don’t require the same “reliability of environment”, that space can be freed up to improve productivity and engagement. “It’s embracing the complexity and sophistication of the way in which different groups work,” says Deakin’s COO.

 But perhaps the biggest shift has been in moving attitudes from ‘I own’ to ‘we share’.

“Traditionally in a university environment, certain people would have certain offices with four walls, lots of bookshelves, and an exclusive right to that space. The one thing we understood was that the more walls that we build and the more doors that we lock, and the more exclusive use we enabled when people don’t actually need it, we are spending…  hundreds of millions of dollars on new development of floor space that we don’t need,” says Selway.

“[We have tried] to remove this right of ownership of spaces, by an individual or a team or a faculty, and say ‘we’ll design beautiful, usable, flexible spaces… but share them when you don’t need them’.”

This approach means Deakin University has been able to invest in the quality of the spaces rather than increasing the volume. That’s saved the university $400 million that would have otherwise been spent on new buildings. Instead, $200 million has gone into renewing existing campus buildings. “Everyone has ended up with much more functional, more beautiful, more usable, more enjoyable spaces because there’s been this shift in practice from ‘I own’ to ‘we share’,” Selway says.

While it’s difficult to measure the effect of blended environments on productivity, Selway points out that increased usage represents a better return on investment in physical space. He adds that people have told him they’re having more conversations in a more natural way, which encourages the development of new ideas and innovations. “If you look at the innovation companies around the world and you look at the way they’re designing their office spaces, they’re designed for people to come together and collaborate, not to retreat and isolate.”

And how do the staff feel about working in the new building?

Reaction is split, says Selway. “There’s a group of staff that are up for anything, and they find any change a really interesting, positive environment with new opportunities. There’s the group that is reasonably positive, thinking ‘I wonder how this is going to work for me personally. I’ll give it a go and see.’ And then there’s the group who will always be reticent to changing what they’ve grown to know over time. You always have a small group that says ‘that doesn’t really work for me, I don’t like it, it’s not the way I’m used to.’ You just have to accept [that].”

When I grow up I want to be an ethical hacker

The work landscape of the fourth industrial revolution, a term coined by Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, looks very different to the one we grew up with in the 20th century. Industry 4.0 is characterised by universal connectivity, technological breakthroughs and fast-paced disruption that are facilitating a widespread shift to automation at the cost of traditional jobs.

We hear a lot about the jobs that we have lost, but what about the new jobs created thanks to advances in technology? Once children wanted to be firefighters and astronauts when they grew up. Now they want to be ethical hackers and drone pilots. Here is a selection from the growing list of jobs that didn’t exist five years ago.

11 jobs that didn’t exist five years ago

  1. Ethical Hackers help institutions identify the vulnerabilities in web applications and networks.
  2. Chief Growth Officers are also on the rise, along with growth hackers, typically social media or viral marketers or product managers, who focus on building the customer base by running rapid experiments.
  3. Chief Listening Officer oversees all customer communications, from social media to face-to-face.
  4. Chief Innovation Officer encompasses both product development and strategic direction responsibilities.
  5. User Interface/Experience Designers focus on making technology instinctive to use.
  6. Cloud services architects oversee a company’s cloud computing strategy.
  7. Cognitive computing architects make machines “think” like humans.
  8. Drone pilots, once the preserve of the military, they’re working in utilities, mining and insurance with roles in deliveries and wedding photography ramping up.
  9. Autonomous vehicle operators remotely operate driverless cars, collecting data for engineers.
  10. Digital prophet: a trend predictor. AOL has one.
  11. Jolly Good Fellow is the personal and spiritual development adviser at Google. Where else?