Jon Favreau: boY GENius

In the struggle to cut costs and grab what little resources are still available, many businesses are tightening their belts and changing their management strategy, from a ‘looser’ style, as preferred by Generation Y, to a more ‘authoritarian’ approach - thereby exerting maximum control relieving the feelings of fear of wasting precious time and money.  Jobs have also suddenly dried up for Generation Y: 40% of the predicted three million unemployed at the end of 2009 will be under 25[1]. Does this mean that Gen Y needs to both ‘pipe’ and ‘knuckle down’, at least until the storm has blown over?

Well, how does this sound? Working most days till 3am and doing vast amounts of research in personal time, breaking only to spend a few hours gaming;-[2] This is the work pattern of Jon Favreau, the 27-year-old speech writer for President Obama. Hailed as ‘boy genius’[3], Favreau is the youngest Director of Speech writing to the White House on record.  As a Generation Y, by all accounts he should be making ‘unreasonable’ demands of an employer; flexible hours, Facebooking his friends during work, and generally openly questioning the command of authority. Instead, Obama’s ‘mind reader’ works day and night for his ‘master’[4].  Jon organised a team of talented researchers, spending weeks gathering information from which he worked into the early hours crafting Obama’s speeches. And the result? From a little-known politician, Barack Obama succeeded against all odds in winning the Presidential election in November 2008 and is now taking his throne as, essentially, world leader.

This should send a strong message to employers that if their Generation Y really believes in the organisation, and that they feel trusted, they will reveal themselves to be an incredibly loyal, productive and all-round powerful workforce.

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[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jan/10/graduate-employment-crisis-rescue-package

[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/20/barack-obama-inauguration-us-speech

[3] http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/adaf9610-e708-11dd-8407-0000779fd2ac.html

[4] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/20/barack-obama-inauguration-us-speech

 

Temp Generation

One of the recurring complaints we hear about Generation Y revolves around the issue of ‘job-hopping’ as we have said elsewhere on this blog (“Gen Y playing leap-frog”). The Generation Y population seems to find it tough stay in one place for any length of time and it is giving employers a headache, putting a strain on both finances and morale. “It would be really helpful, especially in our line of work [relationship management]... if they could stay for at least five years” says one Investment Bank relationship director.

According to the RBS/ NatWest Student Living Index, the number of university students that also take on part-time employment is up at 42%, of all those in Higher Education. This is a sharp rise over the last few years, where previously there was a downward trend, and has gone up to as many as 750,000 in the UK per annum.[1] Student work also revolves around seasonal contracts (Christmas, Easter, Summer holidays), meaning that the concept of full-time work on a long-term basis may be quite an alien concept to most graduates, when they leave university – they’re not used to it.

This increase in contract work is supported by the expansion of the temporary work industry, which has grown five times more than national employment since 1990,[2] which correlates with the unprecedented numbers of redundancies during the 1990s (also well documented in previous blogs). From a commercial perspective, these two events suggest that many businesses believe it to be cost effective to hire some employees on a temporary basis. From a cultural perspective, however, the diminished idea of a ‘job for life’, plus the increasing availability of temporary work does not encourage a mindset of working for a corporate firm on a long-term basis.

This suggests that Generation Y graduates, rather than being lazy or disloyal, are merely working as they always have, on a short-term basis.

All of this supports the kinds of client requests that we see, who are asking us to build longevity into mindset and career paths of Generation Y inside their own businesses.

[1] http://www.easier.com/view/Finance/Household_Bills/Spending_Habits/article-195278.html
[2] http://www.salary.com/personal/layoutscripts/psnl_articles.asp?tab=psn&cat=cat011&ser=ser032∂=par362

Growing up

Nurture. The Baby Boomers were brought up by the ‘Builders’ or ‘Veterans’ (generally those born 1925 – 1945). Many having been through World War I (‘WWI’) as children and all will have experienced in some way World War II (WWII). They were naturally conservative with food and possessions, taught to reuse and conserve what they had. ‘Builders’ were guided by the military discipline instilled through the course of the military action; were affected directly by the economic events of the Wall Street Crash in October 1929 and the years to follow, so named the ‘Great Depression’. (Rightly or wrongly) they communicated these learned values to their children – the ‘Baby Boomers’. Born in ‘two chunks’ (in the UK) between the generally accepted range of 1946 – 1964, the Boomers formed their own identity too. The preceding 20 years had made starting families challenging (not least because of the physical separation of families as they went on duty with their various military ‘outfits’), but now with men returning to handle the economy women were able return to raising a family. Boomers took on these learned values and pursued careers – taught by their Builder parents that a job provided income security – Boomers forged for themselves 20 or 30 year careers with one firm. Generation X witnessed the collapse of this trust as long term ‘expectations’ of job security between employer and (Baby Boomer) employees was shattered in the 1987 stock-market crash. Within 2 days the FTSE 100 had lost 22% of its value and panic struck (even thought the FTSE 100 actually finished two percentage points higher overall that year[1]! Look at this FTSE 100 (1985-2005) chart[2] from Yahoo! Finance and see how the index had been rising for the previous seven months and then ‘corrected’).
This was happening as this X-er Generation was entering the workplace! Loyalty, as you might expect, towards (multi) national firms went down the scale considerably. Gen X-ers were much more independently minded, ensuring their survival they learned ‘transferrable skills’. And it wasn’t just business shaping the minds of Generation X: the birth of the single-parent family became acceptable and this generation thus carries the ‘latch-key’ tag as parents in single-parent families were forced to work to provide for their family. Generation X was cultured to be independent and in work will ‘ring-fence’ their ‘bit’ and look after it. This is also the generation that started to interact with the Internet and online communication – at least as ‘early adopters’.So what about Generation Y? “Self absorbed” “Brash” “Divas[3]” “Ambitious[4]” “Demanding” “Confident” – Yes!


[1] The Motley Fool UK: Market Comment 19/10/2001, ‘Learn the Lessons from Black Monday’ (19 Oct 2001)
[2] http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=%5EFTSE&t=my&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=, ‘FTSE100 basic chart’ (15 May 2008).
[3] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/career_and_jobs/recruiter_forum/article1813031.ece, “How to Connect with Generation Y” TimesOnline (20 May 2007)
[4] http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/news/786810/mt-freshminds-work-20-survey-generation, “Work 2.0 Survey - My generation” (29 Feb 2008)