Arrive Magazine - September/October, 2010

The following strategies may help
create the opportunity, not the problem.

Get Off to a Good Start

Day One of Gen Y’s employment is absolutely crucial. “That’s the day we decide whether or not we can stay with you long term,” Dorsey says. Gen Yers want to hit the ground running, not sit around filling out forms.

“Don’t give us too many rules the first day,” says 19-year-old Katherine Hague, who has worked at various corporations and institutions and is now a student at the Schulich Business School at York University in Toronto. Some of Dorsey’s suggestions to Y-Size Day One include having a peer give the new employee an office tour, taking him or her out to lunch, introducing the new hire to at least one senior executive, and having business cards already printed with the employee’s name.

And, Dorsey says, never have your
new hire start on a Monday. “It’s a day
for solving problems left over from Fri-
day or that occurred over the weekend,”
he says, “and the workplace can be full
of tension.”
Don’t assume that Gen Yers know the
ropes about basic business behavior. An
e-mail before the first day can cover a
lot of ground about things such as dress
codes, work hours and mobile phone
usage, but be prepared to clarify your
expectations and give clear examples
of the performance you expect.

Rachel Permuth-Levine, director of the Center for Employee Wellness and Health Promotion at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Md., manages a staff of Gen Y interns. She sometimes has to edit e-mails or confront workers who take advantage of their flexible schedules.

“When I’m not seeing work turn around in a timely manner, I’ll teach the intern how to set deadlines and milestones along the way,” she says.

“Lead by example,” Gen Yer Hague says. “Set us up with a mentor who can teach us the corporate culture and what’s expected. We want to fit in and do well.”

Managing Gen Y Expectations

1 Respect them. “One of the things that I hear from Gen Y the most is that they want to be respected. They come into the workplace and are either treated as their boss’s child or viewed as inexperienced and [as if] they don’t know anything,” says Kim Huggins of KHR Solutions LLC.

Not Everyone Gets the Trophy: How to Manage Generation Y. “It’s a bunch of nonsense that managers should make work fun.”

Keep Talking

Every employee wants feedback, but it turns out that Gen Yers want more than others. Kim Huggins, president

2 Be a strong leader. “You want to be more like a Marine fire team leader than a host at a birthday party,” says Bruce Tulgan, author of

3 Show them the money. Salary and benefits matter. Gen Yers want to feel they are being fairly compensated. They also want to know what button to push or what lever to pull to earn more.