Three Options for a New Workforce (Part I)

Imagine if you never had to worry about winning, because you were taught your entire life that everyone is a winner. Your favorite after school activity was a video game and if you were about to lose you can always hit reset. Or, if you really had the desire to put forth some serious effort; you can log on the internet and find the "cheats" for beating the game!

Imagine if you never had to worry about getting good grades because your grades were considered the responsibility of the schools, teachers and parents and besides, the government has created a program of "No Child Left Behind" so you were guaranteed to make it through school no matter how hard everyone had to work to get you to your diploma. Sure you will sweat some standardized tests along the way, but teachers will teach your classes directly toward giving you the information to pass the tests. So its actually more a test of how well teachers understand the information on the tests than an evaluation of your comprehension ability.

And even though you are growing up in a single parent household, you are constantly being told you are living a good life, you are a great person and most importantly you deserve the best of everything whether you strive hard to get it or not.

Imagine if you then graduated from high school and had no concern about providing for meals and lodging because you can always live at home with one of your parents to take care of the bills. Besides, you don't have any bills other than the credit cards you are reaching your credit limit on. But who cares! The cards are only asking you to pay a monthly minimum and like your friends have done, if the burden of that gets too heavy, just stop paying the cards until they no longer work, and then walk away. You can worry about your credit score later.

Finally, you find a job that peaks your interest and you are in your job interview. After the person representing the company finished describing the job you ask the questions that are most important to you about this job:

How much vacation do I get?
What benefits do I get?
How soon will my first promotion be coming?
When do I get to renegotiate the terms of employment? (Because, I don’t mind this starting pay as long as we can revisit this in 60 days because I will have experience by then.)

Any of this sounds familiar? The baby boomers reading this will just shake their heads in amazement wondering how anyone can think like this. The Generation X people reading this will say, yup I see this attitude entering my workforce daily. This is the approach of the newest generation to enter the workforce.

Is there a disconnect in the workplace? You betcha!

The biggest disconnect employers are now facing is how unprepared this new generation is for the working world (unless you are a technology business) and how little companies are budgeting for employee development. Simply, the older generation is expecting the new hires to work hard at self development to get up to speed of making a difference in the workplace and the younger generation is looking for the employer to prepare them for the work they want accomplished in the same way schools prepared them to graduate: Exciting and entertaining delivery of information directly related to what will get them to the next grade (or promotion.)

This leaves companies with a couple of training options. Which one does your organization choose?

1. Keep training as it has always been.

Training has typically been some classroom instruction followed by some hands on learning and then its time to learn on the go. The revolving doors of employees coming and going that executives whine about are a good indication of how well the status quo of training is working out. This is not a sink or swim generation of potential employees. They have too many options (one being living at their parents' home unemployed) to tolerate what they believe is not in their best interest. This type of training direction will also drive the most employable best talent to other companies who have a better initial approach.

The rest of the options will be posted tomorrow, be sure to check back for the rest of the story.