What motivates Generation Y and how do they work?
• They are highly ambitious and expect many things – they are used to getting their own way.
As well as being driven by the obvious and timeless desire for higher pay and better benefits, they put a premium on interesting and challenging work, and a work environment that meets their lifestyles and needs.
While these characteristics may be somewhat muted at present by rather sedate economic growth and employment prospects, this has not altered the internal desire of this group to seek new and fresh challenges when the opportunities arise.
Fresh opportunities will come back, and those organisations best prepared to embrace the Generation Y workforce as part of this are most likely to succeed long term.
• Knowledge above title.
Generation Y’s ambition is not expressed in a desire for titles and external prestige, but rather through a real urge to move forward in the ranks.
They expect to do this through the constant absorption of knowledge and skills.
• New challenges – every two years.
It is predicted that by the age of 38, an average Generation Y’er will have had 14 different jobs – that equates to one job every one to two years. This presents a real challenge for all companies with a desire to retain their best staff.
• Freedom and feedback.
They require continuous and instantaneous feedback from management, yet dislike an authoritative management style.
They want the flexibility to work to their own schedules, to break when they want to break, to leave when they need to leave and to arrive when they need to arrive. A difficult balance for any manager to maintain, placing an important requirement on the need for mentoring and coaching.
• They seek companionship at work, rather than just colleagues, as they function on a more flexible, social basis.
This more casual attitude to work is leading to organisational networks, where staff are placed by connections and skills, as opposed to the more traditional hierarchical structures that place staff by title. In turn, this is creating the greater use of project-based teams to complete assignments.
The overriding effect on the workplace is the need for much greater flexibility, where project-based teams can be quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively set up within the office environment and allowed to function on a rolling basis.
• The ability to work remotely is also increasingly in demand, facilitated by technological advances.
This is a generation that wants to be judged on results rather than on their physical presence in the office.
• The work-life balance is a significant source of motivation.
The need for flexibility to suit the demands of family and social life is a major factor driving employment choices, pushing organisations towards offering flexible alternative working strategies.
This does not mean that the workplace will become redundant. In fact, we believe quite the opposite will occur.
Given the pressure on companies to attract Generation Y staff, it is important that the workplace has the right blend of social/fun space which Generation Y can positively identify with.
In locations where there is real pressure on housing in terms of cost and choice, this dynamic is likely to be even more pronounced, pushing the requirement for companies to ensure staff have their own “private space” at work.
Generation Y goes green
Generation Y have a social conscience. While they want their employers to meet their ambitions, to offer them challenging roles and a work environment to suit their lifestyles, they also want their employers to demonstrate a commitment to social issues.
Research reveals that a clear majority prefer to work for an organisation with a commitment to social causes, than for one without.
In relation to the built environment, being green as an office occupier will become more of a “must have” than a “nice to have” in order to attract and retain staff.
Coupled with increased government supply-side pressures to reduce carbon emissions and energy efficiency from real estate (which accounts for 40% of all energy consumed within the EU), this places direct demand and supply-side pressure on developers and owners to provide and maintain sustainable and well-designed buildings.
Who are Generation Y and are they so different?
Generation Y have grown up in a world where they are surrounded by modern information technology and rapid technological change.
Just consider that while it took 50 years for radio to reach an audience of 50m, followed by 13 years for TV; it took Facebook only two years.
The IT revolution does not offer “the shock of the new”, but is an integral part of their life. It is also providing new employment orientations.
Coupled with easier labour migration and simpler access to employment opportunities, this enables Generation Y to constantly seek out the fresh opportunities they desire.
Set against the context of a shrinking labour pool, this is placing collective bargaining power in the hands of Generation Y, and indeed Generation Z – the generation after them.
Recruiting and retaining the right staff is a growing challenge.
