NeXtgen Advantage

NeXtgen Advantage

(920) 419-7710 chad@nextgen-advantage.com

Got Turnover?

by

One of the most common issues I hear from employers is turnover. Business owners and managers struggle to understand why they are turning over their millennials. They’ve labeled these young professionals disloyal, discontent, and “job hoppers.”

I disagree.

After more than a decade of mentoring college students, I can tell you from experience that millennials are in fact very loyal. They’re loyal to their friends, their families, and their goals. They want to be loyal to an employer yet they understand most organizations won’t return their loyalty. And I’m not just talking about job security.

A loyal employer will invest in its employees’ professional development. The millennial generation wants to grow. They’re looking for guidance. They want to contribute. They want your feedback. They want to be challenged and mentored.

If you’re not providing these opportunities, millennials will recognize their current position is a dead end, and they won’t sit for long. They’ll look elsewhere for the next challenge, and the next employer who is willing to return their loyalty.

Many companies I speak with are not willing to change. Hiring managers expect the old order of business—for young employees to remain in a starting role for three to five years, offering no professional growth, just as the managers had experienced in their own early careers.

Yet veterans who expect newbies to “earn their stripes” or “put in their time” will be sorely disappointed. Millennials won’t stick around long enough. This doesn’t mean they need promotions, huge raises, or job title boosts. But they do want flexible positions with room to grow, where they can take on new tasks and tackle new problems, growing as individuals while they help the organization grow, too.

So you want to curb turnover? Change the culture within your workforce. Be loyal to your employees’ growth, and they will be loyal to you. Companies who get this are gaining an advantage in the talent war—and growing right along with their millennials.

Why GPAs Are Killing Your Organization

by

Many employers come to me claiming they can’t find the key entry-level talent they need to move their business forward. The conversation goes something like this.

Chad, we are not finding the talent we need to fill our pipeline.

(My response) What are you looking for?

Ideally we’re looking for someone with experience in [insert some narrow field here] with a grade point average of 3.5 out of 4 or better.

And that right there, folks, is the problem.

I am not a big fan of GPAs. In fact I think they’re a horrible indicator of potential talent. I have mentored numerous young professionals with GPAs lower than 2.5 that are great leaders and innovators within their organizations, given the right opportunity and environment.

Grades are designed to assess a student’s mastery of course material—which, depending on the course, may or may not have any bearing on the real job at hand. Granted, in some cases grades might reflect work ethic or intelligence, but we need to be very careful not to make assumptions based on a number. GPAs rarely account for the intangibles that make a person effective in the workplace—including learning styles, character, interpersonal skills and creativity.

I understand companies use GPAs as screening mechanisms when there is an abundant flow of talent pouring into their organization. However, these same companies are not willing to take a risk or flex when the pool dries up. Then they complain about it.

As the talent war progresses, organizations may need to loosen their stringent GPA requirements. When screeners increase the GPA standard from 3.0 to 3.5 to 3.75, they continue to decrease their pool of candidates. I am amazed at employers who tell me they cannot find candidates and yet their hurdles are so high that even Superman would have a tough time getting an interview. Give me a hard-working, passionate individual that wants to make a difference and an opportunity to coach him/her, and I can likely fill that opportunity with a dynamite employee as you sit continuing to look for your perfect candidate.

So—you want to fill your key entry-level roles with qualified people? Look beyond the GPA. You might find there’s a whole crop of young talent just waiting to be discovered.

Are You Promising Ketchup But Delivering Mustard?

by

Right now business media is swarming with articles telling employers how to find talent in a world where talent is scarce. Everyone seems to acknowledge we’re in a talent war—and it’s only going to get worse. So these articles offer lots of ideas on how to find prospective employees and “get them in the door.”

I completely agree you have to do whatever you can to broaden the pool. However, these articles are all missing one crucial point.

Your appeal needs to match your experience.

Or, more specifically, your employee’s experience.

Companies continue to struggle with this. Let me explain with an analogy.

Think of your job opportunities like ketchup. Picnic-goers love ketchup. So organizations try to sell their particular brand of ketchup to the top picnickers in order to attract them to their party. Come to our picnic, they say, because we have the best ketchup!

However, once the picnickers arrive, the host brings out the mustard, which leaves the attendees very disappointed.

So the question is—are you promising ketchup but delivering mustard?

As an employer, you need to make sure what you’re selling to potential candidates matches what you are able to deliver. If these two do not match, you will have a serious perception problem.

This is especially common in organizations that use millennial recruiters to help bring in talent. The millennial recruiter sells the opportunity to another millennial, saying this is a great place work when in reality the organization does not actually embrace the ideas that were used to attract the candidate. This creates a perception problem.

For example:

  • An organization states they encourage work/life balance, but cars are still in the parking lot long after 6 p.m.
  • Recruiters tout awesome vacation benefits, but the workload is so demanding it becomes impossible to take time off.
  • Leaders tell their employees they have a flexible work schedule and as long as people do their work, they have freedom to work where and when they choose. However, the first minute that supervisor sees an employee is not in her office, the boss sends an e-mail asking where are you?

Do you see? You can create the most amazing recruitment program, but if it does not match the actual employee experience, you’ll eventually breed unhappy employees. And unhappy millennials talk—to friends and other potential talent, which can generate an unfavorable “buzz” among that pool of picnickers you so desperately want to attract.

Promise the ketchup, deliver the ketchup. It’s the only lasting strategy to win today’s talent war.

NextGen Advantage can help measure your organization’s employee/candidate perception and develop effective solutions for attracting, motivating and retaining young talent. Contact chad@nextgen-advantage.com for more information.

Different Approach, Same Result

by

My youngest brother is a millennial. Recently we were discussing the pros and cons of streaming TV (Apple TV to be specific). This led to him asking me how I receive my electric bill.

“You get your bill e-mailed to you, right?” He assumed.

“No,” I replied, “I still get the bill mailed to me.”

He gently rolled his eyes as if I were the ignorant little brother. At that point I could have reminded him I used to change his diapers, but instead I asserted my relevance to the modern world and added, “I do pay my bills online, though.”

So who’s right and who’s wrong? Neither. The point here is that although my brother gets his bill electronically and I get mine via snail mail, in the end we both get the same result. A bill that needs to be paid.

I often hear complaints or finger-pointing from boomers and Xers about “this millennial generation” that in a lot of cases is unjust. Yes, millennials are hugely reliant on technology and they value performance over presence, which is different from what older generations know or prefer, but that does not make these younger workers wrong or lazy. On the contrary, many millennials have learned how to use technology to their advantage by becoming more efficient in their work and personal lives than we “older brothers” of the world.

As I develop internship programs and feeder systems for my client organizations, one of the greatest compliments I hear is that the employer completely underestimated this millennial generation’s ability to get things done. So no matter whether you want to see your bills in your mailbox or your inbox, learn to become open-minded to your millennial staff’s approach to work. You just might discover the end result is exactly what you asked for—or better.

Define “Hard Work”

by

When I interview millennials and ask them to name their strengths, many profess to be “hard-working.” Makes sense, right? In a job interview, most of us would try to sell a potential employer on our outstanding work ethic. But what does that mean, exactly?

In my experience, I’ve learned that “hard-working” is difficult to define. It means different things to different people—or more specifically, to different generations. Consider this scenario:

You’re the manager. At the end of the day you give two employees the same assignment. You mention you’ll be out tomorrow and need the completed report on your desk by 8 a.m. the day after. When you return to work, both assignments are sitting on your desk. You review them; they’re done equally well. However, upon further investigation, you learn the first employee came in at 6 a.m. and left at 6 p.m. The second employee came in at 8 a.m. and left at 3 p.m.

Who worked harder?

If you said the first employee, you’re thinking like a boomer. If you said the second employee, you’re thinking like a millennial.

One of the cultural workplace trends I’ve followed over the years is a shift from a “presence” model to a “performance” model. Boomers value presence. In their experience, hard-working means putting in long hours. If you beat your boomer boss into work and leave after him/her, that boss is likely to say you’re a hard worker.

Millennials, however, value performance over presence. Many students come to me asking the question, “Chad, I don’t get it. Why do I have to come into work for eight hours a day if I get my work done in six hours?” Millennials prefer flexible schedules and circumstances. With their ties to technology, they believe they can work from home—or anywhere else—and be just as productive as the person who parks in the office for eight-plus hours a day.

Neither perspective is right or wrong; they’re just different.

With the millennial generation predicted to make up 70 percent of the workforce in ten years, forward-thinking employers will be taking steps now to attract and retain highest quality millennial employees. One question you need to ask is whether your organization’s culture is presence-driven or performance-driven—and will you choose to adapt for the benefit of long-term success.

What the Business World Can Learn From Baseball

by

Have you heard? There’s a talent war coming. Maybe you’re already feeling the impact. What can today’s organizations do to position themselves for success?

The answer is found on the ball field.

Prior to my business career, I had the fortunate opportunity to play professional baseball. One of the many insights I learned is that the baseball industry evaluates natural talent extremely well. Baseball allows small market teams to compete with the big market, big money organizations.

How did the Kansas City Royals make it to the 2014 World Series with a salary payroll ranked only 19th in a league of 30 teams? How are they able to compete with teams that have 2.5 times their payroll?

How did the Oakland A’s and Pittsburgh Pirates make the playoffs last year with payrolls in the bottom quarter?

They build great feeder systems.

Baseball’s minor league system is a model for business success. These ball clubs understand it takes time to develop players. They give their players opportunities to get in the game so they can learn and develop and improve their skills.

These clubs also understand that when a star player is developed, they’ll most likely lose that star to the big market, big money organizations. However, smart teams prepare for it. They don’t miss a step because they have already developed and positioned the next talent to step up at a value the organization can afford. So their success continues.

The business world would do well to emulate baseball in this regard. If you’re looking for the polished “star,” you might not find it or be able to afford it. But if you develop young talent and prepare them to step up when openings arise, your organization will be able to withstand changes and propel your success without interruptions.

That’s where NeXtGen Advantage can help. We build rock solid feeder systems—internship programs and young professional retention strategies—designed to keep your organization in the game. Through targeted consulting, employer perception assessments, speaking and mentoring, we can deliver the insight you need to attract, motivate, and retain young talent for the benefit of future success.

For more information, contact me, Chad Kopitzke, at (920) 419-7710 or chad@nextgen-advantage.com. I’m looking forward to training your team for the win.