http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/28/business/businessspecial/28CONN.html?ex=1068362185&ei=1&en=41a5d6150aa5c1d4
After reading this article, I do relate with most of traits that the Gen-Xers possess. I acknowledge that I do multi-tasking at work and even at home cuz I cannot seem be able to complete one task at a time with full attention. If I try to work on one task in one run, I may lose my interest so quickly and try to look for something else to work on. Sometimes, I would feel pressed for time or deadline that I end up working on few tasks thinking that I will be able to complete them all at once. I know that it is not best approach, but I still do that anyway. I do notice the similar traits in my friends, some are Gen-Xers and Gen-Yers.
To be frank, I do not see myself working for the company for at least 5 years....at least that is what I am thinking at this phase. I have hungry for new skills to learn out there in the technology world. I love to research, read and get hand-on experience with gadgets or softwares....to understand its function, how it will benefit us and if it is useful in long run.
In the business environment which is something that I am not schooled in, it takes me perhaps at least 5 minutes to send out a simple message to my managers or co-workers that I do not interact on frequent basis. I have to crank out the English to ensure that they are in proper English for the business environment as opposed to the environment that I am so accustomed to - instant messaging, emailing, webcaming or you name it.
Gee, my father has been with the company since 1981 and it seems so foreign to me that I should do the same....being loyal to the company and stay with them for long run. Technology changes rapidly all the time, so the needs of the companies change all the time. Sometimes, I like what I do cuz I get to learn some new skills or stuff....sometimes, I do bicker about what I am doing cuz it doesn't utlizie or take advantage of my skills.
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Youthful Attitudes, Sobering Realities
October 28, 2003
By JULIE CONNELLY
PATRICK KEYES, a senior partner and director for business development at Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, the advertising agency in New York, enjoys acting as a mentor to his young staff members. Mr. Keyes, 40, says it is a powerful substitute when he cannot agree to their demands for raises or bonuses.
"After we complete a pitch for new business," he said, "there are always opportunities to tell them what they did right, or explain how they might have done it better."
Mr. Keyes's coaching can be quite specific, particularly when young people are too casual in communicating with senior executives. "I had to explain," he said, "that it wasn't the best idea for a junior person to conclude an e-mail to the president of Ogilvy with, `Thoughts?' "
In many ways, his comments capture the attitudes of America's newest labor force, 30-something workers - the so-called Generation X - and their 20-something counterparts, Generation Y, who are old enough to be starting careers. This group, ages 20 to 34, makes up roughly a third of the working population, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
These younger workers are often viewed as demanding, self-absorbed and presumptuous, but also as ambitious, free-thinking and eager to learn. They form "a dramatically different labor market that is changing not just the way people are hired and fired, but also how they view their jobs, their employers and their careers," said Peter Cappelli, the author of "The New Deal at Work: Managing the
Market-Driven Workforce" and a professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Because of an unsettled economy and an employment market that has not been kind to these workers, they think there is no reward for loyalty and are reluctant to make long-term commitments. Though they have been called disloyal and unwilling to pay their dues, the reality is that they are adapting to a workplace in which "corporations broke the old arrangement unilaterally," Professor Cappelli said. "They've seen what's gone on with their parents' generation, and a lack of trust in the corporation is a perfectly rational response to that."
This lack of trust is giving rise to another phenomenon, a sense of free agency among young workers who expect to create lifetime careers not with one or two companies, but as independent contractors, selling their services on a project basis to many employers. Each new job is a new negotiation - for pay, obviously, but also for control of the working environment, balance between work and private
life and training for the next job.
According to Bruce Tulgan, the founder of RainmakerThinking, a consulting firm in New Haven that
studies young workers: "Free agency has swept across the entire work force. Skilled workers of all ages are trading stability for mobility."
The strain is most developed in the 30-something workers who have never known a stable workplace and grew up mainly as self-reliant latchkey children. "As a result," Mr. Tulgan, 36, said, "X'ers are used to facing problems on our own and have great confidence in our ability to fend for ourselves."
That may explain why young workers seem to be self-centered in their approach. "The things they ask us about are benefits, rewards and career opportunities - the things that impact `me' - rather than where are we going to be as a company in 10 to 15 years," said John Lankford, the director for management education and leadership development at Oakwood Healthcare in Dearborn, Mich., who recruits young workers.
Mr. Tulgan views this as a sophisticated response to a workplace that operates without the myth of job security. In the last two decades, businesses have embraced large layoffs in the name of cost cutting while reducing benefits for those employees who somehow escaped the scythe. "They don't want to be suckers," he said of younger workers. "They look around and say: `Don't tell me about the long-term. Do you think I'm a fool?' "
The current economy is putting the concept of free agency to the test. Unemployment is higher among younger workers than in the general population. As of September 2003, the national unemployment rate was 6.1 percent, but it was 10.9 percent for those 20 to 24 and 6.3 percent for those 25 to 34, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Jeff Taylor, the chairman and founder of the Internet bulletin board Monster.com, said that "of the college class of 2003, 93 percent are still looking for full-time employment." Monster.com, which is aimed at workers of all ages, is popular with young people. On Oct. 21, an online poll of 4,570 visitors to the site revealed that when finding a job, 71 percent planned to stay put, 14 percent expected to move on within two months and 14 percent planned to leave within six months.
These numbers, while reflecting the state of the job market, also highlight the mixed message that many young workers send out: though leery of company loyalty, they long for a stable and comfortable work environment.
Though a better economy might encourage David Wallsh to start looking around, he plans to stay in his current job. At 25, he is a customer- care consultant for LendingTree.com, an Internet lending service in Charlotte, N.C. He was hired in July 2001, and it is his fourth job since he graduated from Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa. A psychology major who wanted to go into human resources, Mr. Wallsh received no job offers after he graduated, so he took jobs as a desk clerk in two hotels and then answered phones at a bank's call center.
He found out about LendingTree at a job fair, and his first position was working the night shift answering e-mail messages from customers. It took him more than six months to be hired permanently, but now he has been promoted and is working days.
At this point, he said: "My seniority is more important than a paycheck. I might want to become a loan officer."
ANOTHER young person who finds herself driven by the economy into doing work she never expected to do is Keeley Canning Luhnow, 28. She graduated from Wake Forest University School of Law in Winston-Salem, N.C. in May 2002, expecting to practice hospitality law. Though her husband had a job in San Diego, she was willing to relocate for an opportunity to join a big law firm. But she received no offers from firms in any of the cities she and her husband were willing to move to, so she accepted a position as an associate in a one-person firm in La Mesa, Calif., specializing in elder law.
"I wasn't very keen on elder law when I took the job," she said, "but I've grown to like it. My future depends on what happens with the job market, but my employer hopes I'll inherit her practice."
Experts predict that although young workers are glad to have jobs now, they will grow restless once the economy improves. And when employers start vying for these young workers again, experts say, they will have to make an effort to overcome the young people's cynicism and deal with their contradictory behavior.
"These young people have moved a lot and they come from broken marriages," said Chris Widener, the president of Made for Success, a leadership consulting firm in Issaquah, Wash. "They look for stability, community, security in the workplace, and if they don't get it they'll move on to another employer."
Regina Richardson, 26, a senior sales manager at the Millennium Hotel in Cincinnati, has been with the company for four years. What keeps her there, she said, is a boss who "pushes me to achieve what is seemingly unattainable, so I can move ahead with my career." Plus, she said: "It's a friendly place. We all know each other's kids' names and dogs' names."
Even so, Ms. Richardson is not sure she will stay with the company for the long haul. She was raised by a single mother, whom she is proud of and who has worked in the registrar's office at Pennsylvania State University for nearly 18 years. "She's very happy where she is," Ms. Richardson said. "But where the older generation considers it stability, I consider it being stuck."
Christian Reyes, 28, a senior quality assurance engineer at Electronic Arts, an entertainment software developer in Redwood City, Calif., is equally wary. "We all have these hopes that there will be opportunities for us to build loyalty to the job, though we're cynical," he said. Mr. Reyes has had three jobs since graduating from college. Most of his friends, he said, did the dot-com hopscotch, and most have settled for pay cuts and temporary jobs in the aftermath of the Internet bust.
Complicating life for many employers is that with Gen X'ers, everything is apparently open for negotiation. "This is a generation that is used to asserting itself," said Jeff Chambers, the vice president for human resources at SAS, a software company in Cary, N.C. "They know they are mobile; they know they have opportunities."
Judith Gerberg, the director of Gerberg & Company, a career counseling service in New York, said that many young workers were used to negotiating with their parents "and they bring this behavior into the office."
Mr. Lankford, the health care recruiter, said that young workers often challenged company policies on matters like tuition reimbursement. "Their attitude is, `Why won't you pay for this?' " he said. "Instead of accepting that these are our policies, they'll say: `Let's talk about making an exception.' Or, `Let's change the policies.' "
Mr. Lankford, 52, said he was inclined to extend himself not only because the health care industry is in a ferocious bidding war for talent but also because "these people think out of the box."
A frequent point of negotiation is the work-life balance. "No matter how bad the economy gets, these workers won't work in an environment they don't like," said Ann A. Fishman, president of Generational Targeted Marketing, a research company in New Orleans. "They are willing to give up salaries to have quality of life in the workplace."
Young workers are turned off by having to put in "face time." For instance, they think, why can't we tote our laptops to the wireless cafe and log in from there?
"The old 40-hour workweek just doesn't apply," said Conrad Sam, 29, director for sales and marketing at Smashing Ideas, a Web site developer in Seattle. "The average age here is 27 or 28, and people come in when they want. If there's work to be done, you'll stay and do it. No one I know would ever work for anyone where there's a premium on face time."
Education and training are other negotiating matters: free agents quickly discover that survival depends on keeping their skills current. "They want to learn constantly because once they stop learning, they stop being viable," said Heather Neely, a consultant at Rainmaker- Thinking.
Ultimately, many experts think that negotiation as a model is unsustainable because it causes each employee to focus on his or her own needs instead of the task at hand. "But what does work is giving people latitude around their working conditions," said Rebecca Ryan, the founder of Next Generation Consulting, a company in Jackson, Wis., that advises businesses on how to attract young talent.
Managing younger workers can be challenging. Bosses sometimes complain about these employees' short attention spans and habits like talking to friends via cellphone or by instant messaging or downloading music while engaged in job-related tasks.
"Multitasking is a myth," said Jennifer B. Kahnweiler, the founder of About You, a career counseling company in Dunwoody, Ga. "I watch my daughters talking on the phone while instant-messaging someone else, watching television and reading a book. You can't transfer that to the business environment. It won't work - you lose something important if you don't pay attention."
Yet the appeal of young workers springs from many of the traits that drive their bosses crazy, especially their independence and belief that they should be given special projects, rather than dues-paying chores.
"They are willing to take on tasks they have no knowledge about and they fearlessly march ahead," Mr. Keyes said. "I like that."
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
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