Catering for “Millenials” in the Workplace

Intro

I’m going to start this post on a negative. Millenials. I really dislike that phrase. It sounds stupid, almost as daft as Generation Y (which I also have an intense dislike for). Thankfully, the LIS profession is clever enough to refer to new entrants to the profession as “New Professionals”, and whilst I realise that the they are not the same,  for the purposes of this post the two will be treated as synonymous  (read The Next Generation  for more musings on Generation Y etc).

The Point of this Post

PWC have just published a new survey entitled the “Millenials Survey” looking at how the next generation of workers are shaping the workplace, and how employers can meet their expectations. This has been done with a view to ensuring super talented people are targeted, recruited, and possibly most crucially, retained.

I figured that it would be interesting to have a nosey through these figures and see how they translate to the LIS profession.  I was expecting the results to be roughly similar with how I think (I am a New Prof in the commercial sector after all) even though I imagine very few of the 4,364 undergraduates surveyed want to go into the LIS sector. I was also hoping that the results would be obviously transferable across the whole profession, therefore reinforcing an incredibly important point – the LIS profession is just as competitive and comparative a sector as other, more common, areas of graduate recruitment. For the most part, I think the results carry over quite nicely.

Important note – since this is a blog, referencing and footnoting is a right pain. Therefore all figures etc below have been taken from the PWC survey which can be found here: http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/managing-tomorrows-people/future-of-work/millennials-survey.jhtml [Accessed 22 December 2011]

Loyalty

One of the PWC survey’s findings was that the number of employers a graduate expects to have across their lifetime has increased; over 25% now expect to have 6 or more employers across their career. This is apparently a decrease in expected loyalty to an employer.

Decreasing loyalty will sit very much at odds with the traditional LIS sector, where the usual idea was to stay with a collection to develop it.  As hardcopy stock levels continue to decline, the attachment librarians have to their stock is likely to decrease, and a physical bond will no longer exist (that sounds a bit weird. I hope none of you have physical bonds to your stock. If so, please stop now). Moving jobs and familiarising oneself with a new collection is likely to be simpler in the future, especially if current trends in law librarianship continue and large, often identical “bundle collections” are still being farmed out to firms. Instead of collection familiarity, other (more important?) issues with changing jobs will be able to present themselves instead.

This would also fit in with advice that Bethan Ruddock put forward at a recent panel session at ILI2011. In order to progress, it is necessary to look two or three levels above your current position, and then tailor your job search accordingly to develop those skills you need to get there. With almost certain inevitability, this may require several job changes.

Pay

Just as an aside, almost comical in its presence, 32% of graduates said they had taken a job with a lower than expected salary in order to get on the job ladder. At least they were lucky to get a job, unlike many others. Unfortunately there was not a box in the survey to check to grateful/ungrateful/nepotistic.

Career Advancement

Where the survey results flagged up some differences in the careers of graduates outside the LIS sector was the way in which career progression both within and outside of organisations was discussed. 52% stated that to make an organisation an attractive employer it should have opportunities for career progression. I can think of very few library organisations where this is a likely reason for taking a job. Most structures are simply too small; perhaps national libraries are an exception, or some “information units” (GCHQ possibly?), but for the most part teams will simply be too small to support multiple levels of career progression across a long periods of time. Rather, to gain skills and advance, extracurricular activities will be used, new projects within work undertaken, or a change in organisation needed. It is not uncommon for a traditional career tree to be structured of library assistant – assistant librarian – librarian – head of service. A far cry from the various tiered rankings of business consultancy, law or otherwise.

Thankfully, the profession is more diverse than these traditional structures that I have just outlined above. Rather, the various roles that are available to the forward looking information professional do not fit into the traditional career tree structure, because often the different levels of work that will be undertaken can fit into other teams outside of a traditional service and serve as a means to supplement and broaden this linear structure – for examples of this I point you towards organisations such as JISC, MIMAS, or roles such as knowledge managers and other obscure, yet super interesting jobs.

Managing the New Professional

For me, the most interesting part of PWC’s survey was the final part. Not because it was the end, but rather because it dealt with how more experienced generations perceive how we New Profs should be managed. I’ve outlined my thoughts on these into two sections below…

Things that made me giggle/cringe (*Disclaimer – I’m super-manly, GRRR, so I use Giggle in a loose sense of the word*)

“It’s particularly important to understand and address generational differences and tensions.”

            Yes, we have different long term needs to older members of a team. The chances of needing to support a family or have dentures repaired are less likely, but mostly we aren’t that different you know. Some young people have families too – something you will know if you watch day time TV. The statement implies that there are a million worlds between new grads and experienced workers. This is wrong, and will only enforce an “us and them” attitude, possibly leading to grads feeling treated like children, other others feel ancient. As I have said before, mix them together, and hope that new ideas can mix with realistic understanding of how to implement things in order to make something wonderful happen.

“is it time to shift focus from cash bonuses to other things”

            Bonus? Made of Cash? Post Lehman? Must be kidding.

Things that made sense to me

“Challenge them to come up with new ways to streamline processes and to exercise creativity”

            Yes. Absolutely. We are creative and have been bred in a time of austerity. We can streamline with new idesa, uses of tech and swooshing noises.

“Give them honest feedback in real time — and highlight positive contributions or improvements on key competencies.”

            Feedback is good. In a world of uncertain employment and economic downturn, it’s pretty gloomy for new grads. A bit of feedback goes a long way. Pretty sure this is true for all staff though!

“If you know what you want done by when, why does it matter where and how they complete the task?”

            Yes. Though sometimes guidelines and parameters can help shake that student mentality of do it last minute at 1am with lots of coffee. Maybe one to take with a pinch of salt.

“Millennials want to experience as much training as possible”

            Yes. We like to learn. We’ve been through an education system which examines us every two minutes, and without those exams we may now feel lost. Training can help to keep us on track and make us feel like we are progressing. Plus it’ll help your business too by making us better at our jobs.

“They value results over tenure and are sometimes frustrated with the amount of time it takes to work up the career ladder”

            Yes and no. Maybe my above comments about the disparity of career progression between LIS and other sectors applies here.

That’s all

Any thoughts? I’d be keen to know.

Thought Patterns, Plants and Seamus Heaney

Having perused through the Library Journal’s article on the best library architecture of 2011, I was doing a bit of pondering about how the space and environment that we sit within shapes our thought processes and self-application to tasks.

This may seem obvious, after all, anyone whose GCSE poetry anthology covered Seamus Heaney’s “Digging” will surely know that Ireland influenced his decision to write poems about potatoes (perhaps if he were from Somerset it would have been entitled “scrumping” and provided the opportunity for cider drinking to get into his frame of mind; sadly it was nothing but jacket spuds for me whilst revising). The same principle therefore applies for blogging, writing articles and generally applying oneself to tasks and projects. If you work in an academic library, chances are you will ponder things about academic libraries, and maybe after a while start to think like an academic librarian. I work in a law library, and whilst I don’t quite think like a lawyer, I have started to capitalise the occasional word for no good Grammatical Reason.

With this in mind, we will therefore always be shaped by our past experiences and current work environments, be this good or bad. For the most part, it is fine; our experiences provide us with a basic set of skills from which we can build upon and use to grow. When a change in environment occurs (be it job related, or personal), this process is usually accelerated, lending a set of new experiences to shape and develop ourselves; not too dissimilar in how a plant enjoys getting a new pot to fill every once in a while. Much like the plant though, our roots (read thoughts) quickly grow to fit the pot, and come into line with its shape. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, ideas and growth need support and parameters against which they can be measured, however this can mean that the new ideas that were generated are scaled back to fit the confines of the (terracotta?) walls of the new workplace or study environment, just as quickly as the old ways can be forgotten.

This chap has used those past experiences to define himself as well as make something new- Flickr CC by jo-h

I’m not saying this always occurs, but it can do, and it is an easy trap to fall into.  So, how to ensure that our mindsets can continue to grow uninhibited? If I continue to work with the plant theme, then maybe what we need is the human equivalent of Baby Bio to give our professional selves a bit of a kick?

Firstly, awareness always helps. You are reading this aren’t you? Hopefully, some of my nonsensical wording and attempts at imagery will make enough sense that some self reflection can occur off the back of it.

Secondly, don’t worry, it doesn’t really matter. If your frame of mind works for you, then that’s great. This post is 110% speculative. I’m not saying here that you need to change your way of thinking, merely that you need to make the most of it, and realise the benefits that your circumstances have given you. However… if you can be aware of how you think, then you are better placed to self-critique, therefore better questioning your current way of working, and helping yourself to continually improve.

Thirdly, networking and conversing with those outside your regular workplace can be a great way to understand your current thought processes. This can be achieved even better by looking across sectors, either by reading their professional and practitioner literature or interacting with real people (gasp!). It doesn’t matter if those you meet have a similar way of thinking, because if you have realised that they do, then that also means you have become aware of how you, yourself, think! Plus, seeing your personal traits in another sometimes makes it easier to critique them. I’m not saying insult yourself, merely be aware of way in which characteristics and patterns could be built upon, creases smoothed, and the mental thinking process eased out.

Hopefully all of this will provide additional confidence in a way of thinking, leading to new ideas, enthusiasm and a feeling like you are an esteemed psychology professor. Don’t go adding PhD after your name though, that’s just lying (unless you actually have a PhD, in which case it’s fine).

So to round this post off in neat-ish summary, Heaney was aware of his potato based past, subsequently reflected on it in a poem and ended up in the GCSE anthology. Who knows what he would have achieved if his past was based in a library?

*Disclaimer – whilst I enjoy poetry, my ability to analyse it is rather poor. I am however aware that Digging by Heaney is no doubt about more than just Potatoes, peat and hard labour.*