There Must Be An App For This
There’s a timeless truism that is still being passed down from parents to their kids who are just starting their own family: there is no parenting manual. The origin dates back to the Code of Hammurabi circa 1700 B.C., a mashup of “did you pay zero attention to how you were raised?” and “revenge is sweet”. Current practice requires that the phrase be delivered with an empathetic tone and a non-judgmental shake of the head.
The phrase remains in popular use despite ample evidence that there have been parenting manuals available since the 1940s. My parents followed Dr. Benjamin Spock’s advice, my wife and I used the “What To Expect” books as we raised our kids. The current generation of young parents will have the benefit of blogs, podcasts and YouTube videos; and there is actually a website the-parenting-manual.com. But let’s be clear: we’re talking about the easy stuff, like teaching basic hygiene, eating vegetables, saying please/thank you, and setting bedtimes. The truth and wisdom of the phrase becomes apparent when your kids are older and you get to grapple with dress codes (or not), going to church (or not), sex education chats (or not). I know some parents who essentially are holding their breaths until their kids turn 18 and hoping to avoid catastrophic results. Or a class action parental malpractice suit.
When it comes to career management, it seems that there is no manual for this either. [To LinkedIn readers expecting a business essay: thanks for your patience]. If you started your career in the 1980s like me, your world view would be strongly colored by your parents’ experience and the value placed on company loyalty. They worked in an era when cities like Rochester NY and Minneapolis were “company towns”, people really did work from 9 to 5, and job security meant financial security. Companies mentored their high-potential employees and promoted from within. My dad retired from a research company he worked at for over 30 years, and my mom worked at the same hospital for over 25 years. Corporate longevity was celebrated as badge of honor.
As Baby Boomers, we entered the work force under the “company comes first” ground rules but at some unannounced point the unwritten career manual was revised. After the 1983 recession subsided there was broadscale pressure for public companies to deliver short-term financial performance and higher productivity; cost-cutting became a primary business strategy which resulted in direct layoffs (i.e. quick death), reduction and elimination of training (i.e. slow death), and ever-popular one person doing two people’s jobs (i.e. no life). Companies that once proudly claimed, “Our people are our greatest assets” would need to add the footnote “and that’s why we treat them like equipment.”
By the mid-1990s, career management had shifted the onus onto the individual to self-advocate for one’s own career. Without a manual, a lot of 40-somethings got stuck in corporate purgatory with no opportunity for advancement, keeping their head down and hoping to survive the next layoff cycle. Others (myself included) chased the brass ring that was promised by the internet bubble and took the risk of joining startup companies. We rationalized the stress and sacrifice of a 70 hour work week as an “exciting growth experience”, though once the bubble burst and people returned to more conventional companies we maintained the belief that the same overwork ethic would lead to some facsimile of a brass ring (still searching…). Between 1990 and 2010, Boomers became the original workaholics.
Now fast forward to the market that Millennials and Gen Z young professionals are entering. Just as the Baby Boomer generation did, they start by looking behind them at their parents’ work experience. Most will observe the impact of the three economic downturns in the last 20 years (9-11, the 2008 recession, the current pandemic) and conclude that workaholism has not precluded financial difficulties in people’s lives. They will get that job = income, and better job = higher income. But as far as career strategies are concerned…let’s say that this is not your father’s career anymore. Much has been researched and written about what Millennials and Gen Z workers value, and how starkly different it is from the Boomers and Gen Xers who are running companies today. For younger professionals work is and will be a less significant part of their identity, serving merely an instrument to support the lifestyle that they desire. Having close personal relationships is a priority over building a career, and as such they want flexible work arrangements to promote a healthy work-life balance. Millennials like working in teams and are uncomfortable with hierarchy. They expect to work at five companies in the first ten years of their working lives. Corporate longevity has turned into a badge of dishonor.
Of critical importance to the future of organizations is that Millennials are far less inclined to seek management responsibility than their senior cohorts, wanting neither the additional responsibility nor the personal sacrifice that comes with managerial duties. Think of the implications this may have on how companies will operate in the next 10 years. Well-managed companies have always been able to rely upon a pipeline of managerial aspirants fed by either an internal pool of candidates or from eager outsiders wanting to get in. Having young management talent is an insurance policy for effective succession planning and for maintaining corporate culture. Should current trends hold there will be a true generation gap that has not been seen before: predominantly older managers managing a population of young workers that don’t share management’s values.
The aroma of this brewing conflict is already in the air. Talk to Boomer and Gen X managers about their perceptions of Millennials, you’ll hear descriptive words such as impatient, disrespectful, entitled, disloyal. Millennial resistance to demonstrating a commitment or dedication to a company can be misconstrued as selfishness or laziness. These managers will be stuck in their own paradigm about hard work and “paying dues” to get ahead, without realizing that they are assigning old values to a new generation.
Which brings us back to the parenting analogy. Those of you with teenage kids and older have probably had the thorny experience of offering sage parental advice to your son’s or daughter’s unreceptive ears, and then noticed that when someone else gives the exact same advice there is a remarkable openness to it. The problem isn’t the message…it’s the messenger. This is what I believe companies will face: a manager-level epidemic of “my young workers won’t listen to me” and “I can’t get through to them what’s important”. Unenlightened management teams will assign blame to the troops and miss the fact that it’s the officers who aren’t speaking the right language.
But there is a silver lining to this cloud. Managers that can effectively harness the intellect and energy of Millennial and Gen Z professionals are going to become an incredibly valuable commodity for companies of virtually any size and every industry. If you are 30 years old today, you’ll have a natural advantage of being able to relate to the values and priorities of the younger professional. If you’re a Gen Xer, you can hone your managerial skills after attaining a true understanding of the motivators and inhibitors that impact the Millennial work experience. COVID-19 may already have provided you with direct opportunity to manage a remote team, likely a reality of any future corporate work scenario.
At CareerMap we’ll be watching these developments with keen interest. We’ll be capturing best practices and trends around Millennial and Gen Z career development. And then we’ll write a manual for it, or better yet a new app.
Tim Guen is President of CareerMap and blogs frequently about the challenges of building careers in today’s environment.