Pink elephant in the recruiting bull pen these days? What do we do about Gen Y? Next Gen, millennials, digital natives, 20-somethings, call them what you want, they rule the world, so how do we get them to work for us? One you’ve solved that Goridian Knot how do you keep them happy? In an era where the social contract between employers and employees is broken (where you can’t expect employees to stay with one company for the length of their career), how do we adjust our recruiting and retention strategies to account for the fact that you are not going to be able to keep every all-star that you recruit?
The topic of millennial hiring was a key discussion at the SHRM Talent Management Conference’s T2 Talent Tomorrow break-out session today. A panel entitled “Recruiting and Retaining the Talent of Tomorrow” focused on talent management strategies and hiring challenges involving corporate culture and the worker of the future.
Tough questions for CEOs, not just HR professionals. The compounding difficulty for a Gen Y recruiting and retention strategy is that all Gen Ys are incredibly different and a one-size fits all strategy won’t work. Now, there are plenty of Gen Y stereotypes: they are entitled, won’t work hard, just want to get ahead, will jump ship for more money, don’t wear wrist watches?! And anecdotally stereotypes are based on a kernel of truth but you should’t craft a recruiting and retention strategy on them.
Now that we have the stereotypes out of the way (disclaimer I am a GenX/Y cusper) let’s go back to what strategies work for Gen Y recruitment and retention. Perhaps the key thing to focus on here is that your strategy should be to accurately communicate what your brand and culture stand for. Commonly held perception is that your brand is increasingly important and that it must be managed. (An entire industry focuses on this even when it is incredibly hard to manage a brand – especially when you can’t control messaging around ‘black swan’ events: think Toyota and BP). But more important than brand is culture. Yes, culture should be a part of your brand but brand doesn’t ‘manage’ employees, people manage, and people live, breath, and demonstrate culture. This is why the CEO needs to be involved in the millennial hiring question, not just HR professionals.
Why is culture more important than brand? Think about the number one reason employees leave a job. It is because they don’t like their their immediate supervisor. Supervisor behavior can be greatly influenced by culture (incentivized for short-term performance, cut throat competition, what have you done for me lately, etc.) In HR we tend to compartmentalize our HR services in solutions around discreet tasks, hiring, recruiting, learning, development, total rewards, etc. This causes us to stovepipe our strategies and this hurts our effectiveness. Our most powerful recruiting and retention strategy may actually be improving our management culture.
If this is true we need to remember that not all Gen Y’s are created equally and that different management techniques will work better for some and less well for others. This concept is not new or earth shattering I know, but it is because it is common sense that it is often overlooked. If you want to attract and retain the best and the brightest of the next generation take a good look at the culture of your current generation of employees.
Charlie Tierney is a : Chef Humanist Artist Realist Leader Innovator Energizer Traveler Ignoramus Earthy Romantic Nerdy Expert Yuppie Talent Strategist, Manager at Deloitte Consulting, posts do not represent his employer.
