Page 54 - Climate Control News Nov 2019
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Temperature Gauge
Bridging an ever- widening generation gap
THE GENERATION GAP HAS NEVER BEEN AS GREAT AS IT IS NOW ARGUES MARK HADAWAY.
business – renew car insurance, pay bills, do their shopping – at any time of the day or night. They don’t recognise the ‘9-5’ which shackled their parents, and that attitude follows them to work. A Millennial is very likely to answer emails at 9pm, but in return expects the traditional working hours to be less rigid.
Blaming Millennials for wanting more is fruit- less. Instead, employers could turn this to their advantage by bending their rules and reaping the rewards. There are proven gains for both sides when employees are allowed greater flexi-
“LACK OF CAREER DEVELOPMENT IS THE PRIME REASON MILLENNIALS GO JOB HUNTING.”
bility – they are more engaged, more productive, morale is higher, and they are less likely to leave. That said, retention of Millennials is tricky. From some viewpoints they don’t stick at any-
thing, they leave when the going gets tough and are too easily discouraged. It’s certainly true that a job for life is a thing of the past. Most people entering the workforce now will have at least 14 different jobs, which is all-the-more reason to do whatever possible to keep the people you have.
There are no guarantees, but two common misconceptions are that money and job perks will be enough to satisfy an employee. In fact, money is ranked third in the list of priorities for Millennials. Instead, employers should focus on training and feedback.
Lack of career development is the prime rea- son Millennials go job hunting. They are more life-centric than work-centric, and if they feel they have plateaued they will go somewhere else to learn new skills.
In terms of feedback, this is often mistaken for praise. Millennials have grown up in a world where what they do gets an immediate response – largely through social media. That expectation follows them to work.
As customers, Millennials are also changing the rules. Millennials do not care about own- ership as much as experience and conveni- ence. Sharing economy companies like Uber and Airbnb have taken
advantage of this change
in mindset.
The world is changing
and it’s changing the
people within it. To con-
tinue to thrive, it’s time
to forget the high ground
and seek the common Mark Hadaway ground. ✺
WITHOUT A DEGREE in social politics it’s not possible to highlight all the ways in which Mil- lennials or Generation Y are different from their parents – and why they are – but the differences are there and are keenly felt by both sides.
The astronomical change in technology since the turn of the century is one of the more obvious factors creating a divide between children and their parents, and this cannot be underestimat- ed. To get a snapshot of the vast impact it’s had on society in such a short space of time, consider that today there are an estimated three billion mobile users in the world, with global internet penetration standing at 57%. Moreover, the app industry didn’t even exist in 2008 yet just a dec- ade later and 105.3 billion apps were download- ed during 2018 alone.
More than 42% of the globe is on social media now. Last year a million people used mobile so- cial media for the first time every single day.
If we’re shaped by our environment, it’s hardly surprising that Millennials are ‘different'. They are the first technology native generation.
When it comes to business success, under- standing those differences has become para- mount because today Millennials are our em- ployees, our colleagues and, most importantly, our customers.
EMPLOYEES
From next year Millennials are expected, for the first time, to become the dominant age sector in the global workforce – making up 75% of it by 2025. But understanding them, and what they want, has confounded many with accusa- tions such as entitled, mollycoddled, narcissistic, and lazy laid at the door of most 20 somethings.
Millennials are the first generation to have grown up in a digital world that is essentially 24/7. They expect to be able to carry out their
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