A new generation of “ethical consumers” are starting to demand more than just great products and services at fair prices - they also increasingly require transparency, environmental care, social responsibility, diversity and a host of other characteristics in the companies they buy from. They will be demanding these from their employers in the future, too. In this article, Dr Graeme Codrington helps you to see your company - your product offerings, your brand, your reputation, your leaders, your people and your future - through the eyes of your future consumers and staff.
Archive for the 'Generation Y' Category
You only get one chance to make a first impression. The old cliché could not be more true, or more important, in a world where we compete constantly for customer’s attention and connection. Dr Graeme Codrington looks at some first impressions you may not be considering, and suggests that this is so important that it should be a top strategic priority.
The Economist recently reflected on the growing use of cellphones in China, and how this is impacting a generation of young people to think about - and get a taste for - democracy. Here is an extract of the article. The original can be found here (subscription required).
Mobilised by mobile
Jun 21st 2007 | BEIJING AND XIAMEN
From The Economist print edition
Organised by text messages and internet chats, China’s middle classes are daring to protest, and giving the government a fright
INFORMATION technology in China is once again making political waves. In the tropical seaport of Xiamen citizens still talk excitedly about how an anonymous text message on their mobile phones last month prompted them to join one of the biggest middle-class protests of recent years. And in Beijing politicians are scrambling to calm an uproar fuelled by an online petition against slave labour in brick kilns.
Chinese officials have had reason to worry before about the rallying power of the internet and mobile phones. Two years ago they helped activists organise protests against Japan in several Chinese cities. But the government, at least initially, sympathised with those protests. By contrast the demonstrations in Xiamen were directed at officialdom, and the slave-labour scandal embarrasses the government. It involves allegations that officials ignored kiln-owners’ use of abducted boys to perform dangerous work. This has triggered a heated online debate about the political flaws that allowed such horrors to happen.
From Fortune magazine, 3 May 2007. Read it here.
Everybody wants to work for Google. After leaping into the No. 1 slot this year on Fortune’s annual list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For, the company turns out to be tops with MBA students as well. For the first time on Fortune.com’s list of 100 Top MBA Employers, more respondents say they’d rather work for Google than for traditional magnets McKinsey (ending its 11-year reign at No. 1), Goldman Sachs, and Bain & Co.
Another intriguing wrinkle in the 2007 survey results: Four of the five employers in the top 20 that moved up in rank this year - Nike, Microsoft, Apple, and Google are headquartered on the West Coast. Coincidence? Claudia Tattanelli, CEO of Universum, the research firm that conducted the survey of 5,451 MBAs on which Fortune.com’s list is based, thinks not.
Continue reading ‘Where Generation Y wants to work (and how to attract their attention)’
I found a great article at the Teaching Moments website. It is meant to help parents (I think especially home schoolers) to know what employers will be like when their kids leave school and enter the job market. You can find the original here.
Your Child and the Future
John Bishop
This article will give you some insight on how employers are preparing for the entry of your children into the workplace.
Are Your Managers Ready for Generation Y Employees?
Generation Y or the “Internet Generation” will dramatically change every aspect of your business in the next five years!
Continue reading ‘Your Child and the Future: Work gets ready for Gen Y’
Older supermarket workers, at Britain’s Tesco, are being given a guide to youth slang to help them understand younger colleagues and customers, in the form of a pamphlet handed out to staff. The pamphlet is being tried out in some of Tesco’s 1 500 stores with a high proportion of employees over retirement age.
Key phrases in the guide include:
- Bad: Good (but this can also mean bad. When in doubt, just nod).
- How’s it hanging?: How are you today?
- Laters: Cheerio, goodbye.
- Minging: Ugly, unattractive.
- Phat: Wicked (in the good sense), cool.
- Slammin’: Pleasing to the eye.
- Talk to the hand: I’m not listening.
- Wack: Weak, boring.
A Tesco spokesperson said: “It aims to help bridge the generation gap and offer a guide for older members of staff looking to chat with younger colleagues and customers.”
Continue reading ‘Tesco trains their staff in generational talk’
In one of the most recent Fortune magazine editions, the Millennial generation made the front cover under a great headline: “Manage Us, Puh-leeze”. The subtitle of the article was: “Boomers, you raised them, now manage them!” It is a long article, but really worth while wading through. Get it free at their website, or read an extract below.
Attracting the twentysomething worker
The baby-boomers’ kids are marching into the workplace, and look out: This crop of twentysomethings really is different. Fortune’s Nadira Hira presents a field guide to Generation Y.
FORTUNE Magazine
By Nadira A. Hira, Fortune writer-reporter
May 15 2007
(Fortune Magazine) — Nearly every businessperson over 30 has done it: sat in his office after a staff meeting and - reflecting upon the 25-year-old colleague with two tattoos, a piercing, no watch and a shameless propensity for chatting up the boss - wondered, What is with that guy?!
We all know the type: He’s a sartorial Ryan Seacrest, a developmental Ferris Bueller, a professional Carlton Banks. (Not up on twentysomethings’ media icons? That’s the “American Idol” host, the truant Matthew Broderick movie hero, and the overeager Will Smith sidekick in “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”)
At once a hipster and a climber, he is all nonchalance and expectation. He is new, he is annoying, and he and his female counterparts are invading corporate offices across America.
Generation Y: Its members are different in many respects, from their upbringing to their politics. But it might be their effect on the workplace that makes them truly noteworthy - more so than other generations of twentysomethings that writers have been collectively profiling since time immemorial.
They’re ambitious, they’re demanding and they question everything, so if there isn’t a good reason for that long commute or late night, don’t expect them to do it. When it comes to loyalty, the companies they work for are last on their list - behind their families, their friends, their communities, their co-workers and, of course, themselves.
But there are a whole lot of them. And as the baby-boomers begin to retire, triggering a ballyhooed worker shortage, businesses are realizing that they may have no choice but to accommodate these curious Gen Y creatures. Especially because if they don’t, the creatures will simply go home to their parents, who in all likelihood will welcome them back.
Some 64 million skilled workers will be able to retire by the end of this decade, according to the Conference Board, and companies will need to go the extra mile to replace them, even if it means putting up with some outsized expectations. There is a precedent for this: In April 1969, Fortune wrote, “Because the demand for their services so greatly exceeds the supply, young graduates are in a strong position to dictate terms to their prospective employers. Young employees are demanding that they be given productive tasks to do from the first day of work, and that the people they work for notice and react to their performance.”
Buppies - Black yuppies. Black young upwardly mobile professionals. Research shows that this is one of the fastest growing demographic groups in South Africa, but many companies and leaders have no idea how to manage them. Aloysias Maimane, a new member of the TomorrowToday team and a top South African presenter and facilitator, provides some insights into this important group.
Continue reading ‘Buppies - coming to terms with young black staff’
Every business has customers who are convinced they can design a new product that is better than the product they are being sold. So the question is why not let them? Crowdsourcing is a new and innovative research methodology that allows customers to help design the products they want online. It’s a methodology that is saving companies thousands of pounds on research bills and is proving highly effective because customers are getting the chance to mould and shape the products they are going to be buying. And because products are not being designed by remote head office R&D teams the chances of product flops are greatly reduced.
MIT’s Sloan Management Review recently published a paper, written by Susumu Ogawa, a professor of marketing at Kobe University in Tokyo, and Frank Piller, a professor at TUM Business School in Munich, on the concept of crowdsourcing. This is how these two professors put it “Forecasting the demand for new products is becoming increasingly difficult in many markets. But collective customer commitment (crowdsourcing), a new method to decrease the flop rate of new products, offers a solution by integrating customers deeply in the innovation process and asking for their commitment to purchase before development is finalized and manufacturing starts.â€?
Incredible, can you imagine the benefit in cost savings of getting your customers to design the products they want and then getting them to pre-order the product before it’s manufactured? 

This really is harnessing the power of the “connection economy!�
Continue reading ‘Cheeky companies with happy customers and even happier bottomlines!’
An excellent article in the USA Today, 11 June 2006, reports on the Millennial generation’s entrance into the workforce. In the USA, Millennials are defined as those young people born 1984 to 2000, so they’ve been entering the workforce for a few years now, and managers and researchers are starting to get their heads around a new set of values and expectations that they bring.
This generation is going to have a massive impact on the workplace - all around the world, and employers need to start getting ready for them now.
Read the article at the USA Today site, or read a summary of it below.
Continue reading ‘Generation Y: They’ve arrived at work with a new attitude’
If you don’t know what Second Life is, check it out here first. Its an online, virtual reality game that has created a completely online world. You select a character, buy into the game, and start “living” a life in the game. You can run a shop, be an explorer, run for political office, or do anything you could do in “real life”. There are some people who have made Second Life a profession, selling “land”, “clothes” for characters (called avatars) and just living this “second life”.
At TomorrowToday.biz, we’re really interested in game theory, and how gamer culture is influencing the world and business culture. See some of our previous blog entries: Lessons from the gamer generation, and The Gamers are coming.
But, I stumbled on a magnificent site recently. Its mainly a bit of fun, but there’s a very important and serious message behind the site. Its “Get a First Life” - http://www.getafirstlife.com/. Its a brilliant parody of the Second Life site, and you’ll laugh out loud at the cleverness of the look alike site. Great message, too — some gamers need to get out more!!
Enjoy. And, PS, get a first life!
This is a really nice piece from the Christian Science Monitor, from the April 27, 2006 edition.
Gen Y’s opt-out vision
By Courtney E. Martin
BROOKLYN, N.Y. – Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day (April 27) would be a great idea if the contemporary workplace was actually a place where we wanted our daughters and sons to end up. Unfortunately, for the second-wave feminists who created it, and fortunately, for the third-wave feminists who aren’t having it, this “special day” is about as relevant as a traditional Southern coming out party.
The “opt-out revolution,” first coined by Lisa Belkin in her New York Times Magazine story in October 2003, has since been discussed by feminists and antifeminists alike in countless news features and opinion pieces. The trend of young women rejecting the traditional workforce is, indeed, real. But this trend isn’t limited to young women. What social commentators are failing to point out is that both young men and women are not just opting out, we’re not even buying in.
In our presentation on the different generations, “Mind the Gap“, when we talk about the Millennial Generation (born 1990s and 2000s, or slightly earlier in some countries - USA defines them as born 1984 to 2000), we often say, “they’re confident; so confident, they’re almost arrogant”. When I was a youth worker in the 1980s and early 1990s, the big issue was helping young people develop self belief and self esteem. I think we overdid it. Now, a new study of US college students proves this point.
The Associated Press reports:
Today’s college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships and American society.
“We need to stop endlessly repeating ‘You’re special’ and having children repeat that back,” said the study’s lead author, Professor Jean Twenge of San Diego State University. “Kids are self-centered enough already.”
[The research] examined the responses of 16,475 college students nationwide who completed an evaluation called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory between 1982 and 2006. The standardized inventory, known as the NPI, asks for responses to such statements as “If I ruled the world, it would be a better place,” “I think I am a special person” and “I can live my life any way I want to.”
The researchers describe their study as the largest ever of its type and say students’ NPI scores have risen steadily since the current test was introduced in 1982. By 2006, they said, two-thirds of the students had above-average scores, 30 percent more than in 1982.
Twenge is the author of “Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled — and More Miserable Than Ever Before” (buy it at Amazon.com).
The title of the book grabbed my attention: “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder”. Its by Richard Louv (get it at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net). I haven’t read the book, but The Economist magazine quoted it extensively in an article about young people in the US not being interested in visiting the country’s national parks.
One of the thoughts is that technology, digital entertainment, malls and other amusements have pulled young people away from the National Parks. That is probably true (see article here or below).
However, I wonder if there is another way of thinking of this. Most game parks pride themselves in being technological stone age. “Its part of the appeal” they would say. To get away “from it all”. Well, maybe Millennials don’t want to “get away from it all”. After all, most of these parks have tarred (or least well graded) roads, electricity, running water and other amenities. So why not wifi access, good mobile phone coverage and Internet cafes? Why not? Sure, you might want to have rules about being aware of others and silence, etc. But why shouldn’t you be able to stand on top of a majestic mountainpeak, watching a spectular sunset, and MMS a picture of it to your mate?
Just a thought…
As my three daughters eagerly opened their Christmas presents, my heart sank further and further to the floor. There are two things that stirke fear into the soul of any self-respecting Dad (at least, those with the limited handyman skills that I have).
The first is the euphemism emblazoned on some of the more serious toys: “some assembly required”. This invariably requires about 5 different screw drivers sizes (only one of which I might have somewhere back here in my rusting and dusty toolbox), a ratchet set (are there really people who actually have a complete ratchet set neatly laid out in their shed?) and other tools I don’t even know how to pronounce, let alone use. And, of course, all the “English” assembly instructions were written by the rural supervisor in the Chinese factory, having first translated them from the Russian translation of the hand scribbled notes of the original engineer (who designed version 1, but not this version you’re trying to assemble in front of your increasingly less adoring tribe of juvenile female sapiens).
The second is: “batteries not included”. I mean, really, why not? The adrenaline rush of wripping the paper off is followed by the endorphin rush of recognising the very electronic gizmo the advertisers so cleverly convinced them they could not live without. Loud shrieks, arms aloft and shrill screams (I told you I had three daughters) are rapidly followed by waves of disappointment and frustrated little arms crashing down to their sides, as they realise that their darling daddy did not have the foresight to stock up on a carton of AA and AAA size batteries. And it’s Christmas today, and the shops are closed, and we can only get batteries tomorrow. And, yes dears, I know you’re disappointed - believe me, with all your whining and complaining, I’m as disappointed as you are!
If the results of a recent study are true, then Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) needs to become a priority for companies and fast. A research study by the strategic planning and consumer insights division of AMP Agency shows that 61% of Millennials born between 1971 and 2001 feel personally responsible for making a difference in the world.
The results are eye-opening and socially and environmentally responsible businesses are positioned to reap rewards:
- 83% will trust a company more if it is socially/environmentally responsible.
- 74% are more likely to pay attention to a company’s marketing when they see that the company has a deep commitment to a cause.
- 89% are likely or very likely to switch from one brand to another (price and quality being equal) if the second brand is associated with a good cause.
- 79% want to work for a company that cares about how it impacts and contributes to society.
- 64% say their company’s social/environmental activities make them feel loyal to that company.
- 56% would refuse to work for an irresponsible corporation
The pendulum appears to be swinging back, in the 80’s CSR was big and many companies leveraged this from a marketing perspective. Nedbank’s affinity and green products come to mind. But in the last decade CSR took a back seat to downsizing, rightsizing, operational efficiencies and bottom line profits.
Continue reading ‘MILLENNIALS PLAN TO REWARD OR PUNISH COMPANIES’
Sept. 18 /PRNewswire/ (full report here) — As it approaches its 95th anniversary in 2007, Girl Scouting is undergoing a historic transformation to modernize the iconic organization and focus on leadership development for girls in the 21st century. Addressing each area of the organization, the transformation intends to revitalize the Girl Scout brand, create new fundraising models, improve volunteer systems, and significantly realign the national Girl Scout council infrastructure. The monumental changes have been designed to deliver a program that focuses on Girl Scouts’ core strength of leadership development, while also offering provable outcomes that benefit girls, families and communities.
The National Board of Directors also endorsed a more contemporary leadership philosophy, and renewed an organizational commitment to develop leadership skills based on the values of the Girl Scout Promise and Law. This leadership philosophy is captured by the new Girl Scout mission statement: “Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence, and character who make the world a better place.”
Girl Scouting has identified some core tenets of its leadership philosophy — discover, connect and take action — which will form the basis of all Girl Scout activities beginning in October 2008. The ideas of discovery, connection and action reflect the Girl Scout view that leadership extends beyond holding a position of authority. In Girl Scouting, leadership is about self, others, community service and philanthropy. You can’t lead well unless you really understand yourself and have your set of values very well in place. Research, conducted from June 2005-2006 by the Girl Scout Research Institute (GSRI), shows most girls see the value of developing leadership skills and that girls define leadership in terms of the qualities a leader possesses and the actions she takes.
There are more and more cars on the road, and the complexity of these cars is ever increasing. Who is going to service them? Who is going to fix them when they break? Already, you have to book a few weeks in advance to get your upper-end car in for its regular service. And the quality of the servicing leaves something to be desired. This is a worldwide problem, as a report in “Tire Review online” suggests. Its in the 11 Sep 2006 edition, and is entitled: “Shops in Crisis? The Tech Shortage”, by Steve LaFerre. Read the report here.
Some extracts appear below, and you will see my interest in the matter, as it relates to generational perceptions of the automotive industry, engineering and mechanics as well as the need for knowledge/wisdom continuity from the soon to retire Boomers. If this isn’t dealt with, we’re going to see a trainwreck in this industry in a few years time.
A recent survey published by the Entertainment Software Association entitled “Essential Facts” deals with sales, demographic, and usage data within the gaming industry. The full report can be downloaded from 2005 Essential facts. Some of the numbers the report returned are not what you would expect.
- 75% of heads of households play games
- The average age of gamers is 30
- 19% of Americans over 50 play games
- The male / female ratio is 55% male & 43% female [allowing a 2% error margin in the survey]
Continue reading ‘Gamer stats - They’re not what you’d expect’
I found this article on India’s Generation Y (born after 1979). It’s very interesting because although it focuses on corporate India, it is relevant to all organisations all over the world:
Young to turn critical for India, Inc.
The Economic Times
06 July 2006
K Ramkumar was a little surprised that day. A fresh recruit from a top B-school, looking almost shattered and very sad, knocked at his door: “Sir, I need to speak to you.” As the HR head of ICICI Bank, Kumar was at least two levels away from the recruit’s immediate boss. Though a bit taken aback by his confidence, he welcomed him in, saying, “Come in, come in. what’s the matter?”
India’s Generation Y (those born after 1979) is now entering the work force. With 54% of India’s population under 24 years, their number in the work force is, by any count, sizeable.
But handling them will not be easy. They are a completely different breed. Conventions, and the usual management principles just do not apply here. They are an impatient, impulsive, confident - at times overconfident - lot who have mostly got things on a platter.
A nice thought about today’s two youngest generations, from the Toronto Star, 20 June 2006.
It’s time for Gen X to start reminiscing about the good old days, as a new generation comes of age, by Jen Gerson
As useful as Generation X has been at popularizing piercing, caffeine addiction and a self-satisfied sense of superiority born out of a love for charity rock concerts, it’s about time it moved on to make room for the next beacons of youth culture — Generation Y.
It’s our turn. Remember when the Xers wanted to shove the baby boomers aside? Payback’s a bitch.
By now, we know who the Xers really are. And other than Molly Ringwald and sarcasm, what have they done for the world lately? Have you seen what they’re pumping out on cable?
Generation X became the moniker for yet another lost generation: the whiny, the entitled, and at first, the underemployed. The Xers remain loosely defined as the forgotten children born after the glut of baby boomers between 1965 and 1980.
Although their adulthood began in earnest with a great deal of railing against the boomers in lieu of their missed opportunities, soon their lives became like the TBS lineup: continuous episodes of Friends by day, Sex and the City by night.
As the first wave of Gen Xers start selling off their condos and moving into the suburb years, the next generation of tastemakers and trendsetters are coming of age. And while a plethora of aging academics and boomer naysayers have analyzed our Net, work and social habits ad nauseam, there’s no voice coming from inside to stake our claim, to say, “This is what makes us different.”
Give us time. Gen Y came immediately after the 1980s, and floats in its infancy. Gen Y is forming its identity apart from its generational older siblings. The Gen Xers are flailing in their attempts to maintain their domination of all things young and cool.
So while the line between the generations is still being drawn, how does one tell the two cohorts apart? For your convenience, it’s Gen X vs. Gen Y: A Spotter’s Guide.
I picked up on a great Fortune article on the CNNMoney.com site about MySQL, the open-source software designers, over the weekend. It unpacks the dynamics of this completely decentralised organisation, and just what makes it tick as well as it does.
This, according to the article, is a challenge facing many companies - new and old, established or fledgling - as we transition into a Connection Economy. As globalisation and commoditisation have an increased effect on our workplace and our employees, we need to find innovative new ways to nurture a productive bond among workers who rarely, if ever, meet.
…and your clicks for free.
Alex Tew is 21 years old, a student from Wiltshire, England. On August 25th of 2005 he launched the Million Dollar Homepage, an ambitious attempt to raise money (according to Alex) for his varsity education.
Quite simply, Alex set up a blank website, 1000 x 1000 pixels (one million pixels altogether) and sold off 10 x 10 pixel blocks for $100 each. That’s a dollar for a pixel, effectively. Purchasers had the option of submitting a graphic to be displayed, with a link to their website. Things started off a little slowly but as the rumours passed from pc to pc, email to email, blog to blog – orders began to pour in. Having begun with nothing at the end of August, Alex auctioned off the last 1000 pixels on 1 January 2006 for $38,100 and a grand total of $1,037,100.
Not a bad profit considering his only costs where five month’s worth of hosting fees – approximately R 500.
The incentive for investing in Alex’s homepage? Well, at the peak of its growth Alexa rated the site at 127 for traffic – that’s 127th out of ALL the sites making up the World Wide Web. The story of Alex’s site was pasted all over blogs around the world. The brands shown on the page have been seen literally by millions and millions of users. But not only are these companies, sponsors and individuals part of an elaborate (albeit successful) moneymaking scheme – they’re part of a great story. And sometimes just being part of a great story is absolutely priceless.
Earlier this week, the North East Texas Workforce Board’s 2006 Revolution Forum discussed issues related to Gen X and Y in the workplace. In that part of the world, young people under the age of 40 account for more than half of the workforce. Issues that were raised by various speakers and experts related to the 20-something workforce include:
- Generation Y workers have high expectations and can be “high maintenance,” they can also become the most productive work force seen
- They have an entrepreneurial spirit - more teenagers than ever before have their own businesses
- When Generation X first entered the work force, the economy was in a downturn and those workers realized that “jobs may come, jobs may go.” They do not expect job security.
- They have also developed a different sense of loyalty, that includes their own lives and families just as much as their jobs.
- Younger workers won’t follow policies and procedures just because they are told to do so.
- Give recognition and reward in the moment.
- They think their co-workers should be sources of learning.
- This generation wants training, social responsibility and ethics in the workplace, and what they seek from older workers is respect, opportunity and wisdom.
Read the report here.
The Washington Post of 21 May 2006 carried an article entitled, “Big Babies: Think the Boomers are self-absorbed? Wait until you meet their kids.” It is a review of a new book by Jean M. Twenge, called: “Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled — and More Miserable Than Ever Before”. Read the review here. Buy the book or download the eBook at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net.
According to Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University, when it comes to unbridled self-interest, even the self-absorbed Boomer Generation pales in comparison to its spawn: three decades of coddled kids whose untrammeled egos are now running amok in our schools and workplaces….
Children born in the last 30 years, she argues, have been taught that feeling good about yourself is the most important thing in life. Self-love is not so much a goal as a birthright, affirmed by the cloying lyrics of a hit 1986 Whitney Houston song (”learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all”). Old-fashioned values like hard work and skill have been cast aside in favor of giving everyone a gold star — because they’re good enough, smart enough, and doggone it, people like them!
The daily affirmations aren’t limited to school. Members of what Twenge calls the most wanted generation in history — thanks to advances in birth control — are told that they can be whatever their hearts desire. In this age of celebrity worship, the preferred career track is wealth and fame (talent notwithstanding). Desiring is the same as deserving — as evidenced by the “American Idol” phenomenon, in which tuneless singers reject the verdict of the more discriminating judges and howl about their greatness, as their cowed parents nod in agreement. (Twenge might as well have dubbed these budding narcissists “Generation Moi,” à la Miss Piggy.)
Recent Comments