| Ready or Not, Here They Come |
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Millennials at work.
By Ryan Bartelmay
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| Photography by Martin Barraud/Getty Images |
Every day, Aaron Kulik, a recent graduate of Arizona
State University, rides his motorcycle to work. He strolls into Dick
and Fritsche Design Group (DFDG), an architecture and interior design
firm in Phoenix, at 8:30 a.m., an hour after most of his older colleagues
have sucked down their first cup of coffee. Kulik is an interior designer, but
like most staff members at DFDG, he doesn't have a title.
In his first year at the firm, he played many different roles - construction
administrator, design assistant, graphic designer - and was even allowed to
design the bathrooms and lobby of a 230,000-square-foot corporate office
project. When his boss, Staci Seyer, IIDA, Vice President at DFDG, assigned
the project, Kulik was nervous, but at DFDG, employees are given a long
leash. "They trust their employees," Kulik says. "It's a learning environment,
and if I mess up, they aren't going to fire me. They hired me to build
up my talents and strengths."
Kulik is one of 70 million Millennials (also known as Generation Y)
- those born after 1977 - who currently make up 20 percent of the U.S. population. While as many as 78 million Baby Boomers may be planning
their warm-weather retirements, ultimately creating a hole in the workforce,
design firms like DFDG are reaching out to Millennial employees,
hoping they will choose to grow with the company and shape its vision
for decades to come.
A NEW BREED
Millennials have been called everything from "narcissistic praise hounds"
in a recent episode of "60 Minutes" to "demanding" by CNNMoney.com.
Ryan Healy, a Millennial and Co-founder of employeeevolution.com, was
pushed into the spotlight on "60 Minutes" for the blogging efforts on his site,
which attracts 150,000 unique visits every month. And he disagrees with the
media's portrayal of his generation. "Millennials want meaningful work,
and they want to see how the work they do is benefiting someone," he says.
The desire to do meaningful work is not a new generational trait. What
is new, however, is the fact that Millennials aren't afraid to walk away
from an unfulfilling job. Unlike some of their Baby Boomer parents, Millennials refuse to climb the corporate ladder rung by rung and won't sit
behind a desk for 30 years waiting for their retirement plaque. Instead,
Millennials blaze their own career paths and are hungry to fill their toolbox
with a plethora of job skills. If that means trying on four, five or six jobs,
they'll happily do it.
"Millennials don't come out of school wanting to land leadership roles,"
says Dorothy Russel, Principal, Essential Futures, a Toronto consulting firm
that specializes in assisting design firms manage succession, risk and change.
"They want challenging work, they want to belong, they want to be part of a
team, and they want to contribute. Those are human, fundamental needs."
Millennials also don't want to be shackled to a Sisyphean existence where
day after day they push the same rock up the hill, only for it to roll back to
the bottom after they finish. "Millennials are ambitious and optimistic, but
they don't buy into the system," Healy says. "If they're learning new skills and
being challenged, they'll stay focused and not want to leave the job."
But they need to see where they fit in. They'll happily engage themselves
in something as nominal as a "paper push," Healy says, as long as
they can see how their contributions affect the company's big picture.
Diane Bender, Ph.D., ASID, IDEC, Assistant Professor in the
Department of Interior Design at Arizona State University, coordinates
the school's interior design internship program. She often hears students
complain that if someone in a leadership role would have taken the time
to speak or listen to them, they would have made more of a contribution.
She also says many students become frustrated if they aren't able to
make decisions, even simple ones like the color of a wall. "It's all about
feeling valued," she says. "Students who are offered jobs at the end of an
internship won't take them if they don't feel like the firm values them.
Even if the firm is offering a great salary, the student will hold out for
one that will value them."
While the money issue may be a head-scratcher for some Boomers, who
have spent their careers chasing cash, it's not the driving force for many
Millennials. Initially, money may attract a Millennial, says Russel, who delivered
the 2007 NeoCon session, "Ownership and Management Succession: Is
Your Firm Prepared?" But old retention methods - like the 3- to 5-percent
raise - won't keep them punching the clock.
"It doesn't matter how much money is thrown at a Millennial," Healy
says. "If there isn't personal or career growth potential, they'll jump ship."
FEEDING THE FIRE
In Phoenix, DFDG is a medium-sized firm with 30 employees, but firm
leaders are considering expanding it, which means additional junior
staff members like Kulik will need to be brought in. With potential
growing pains looming, DFDG leadership has talked extensively about
the new generation.
"In the design world, the designers tend to be younger employees because
the older ones attrition out," Seyer says. With this in mind, Seyer and her colleagues
know they need to come up with innovative ways to attract the incoming
generation and keep them around the office for more than a couple of years.
One reason Kulik keeps riding his motorcycle to DFDG every day is
the firm's flattened hierarchy. Seyer describes the DFDG staff member as
someone who can wear multiple hats. "On one project, a staff member
may be the project manager, and on the next project, he or she may be
the junior designer or the project engineer," she says.
Kulik adds, "Principals will do CAD work, whatever is needed to get a
project completed. Right off the bat, [the firm gives] you responsibility and
let[s] you start contributing. The firm doesn't hire CAD monkeys or anything
like that."
In Cincinnati, architecture and design firm FRCH Design Worldwide -
ranked one of the Top 15 Small Workplaces by The Wall Street Journal in
2007 - employs 10 times as many employees as DFDG, but is equally as conscious
about the incoming generation. "It seems that Generation Y selects the
firm as much as the firm selects them," says Donna Szarwark, Senior Vice
President, Human Resources, FRCH Design Worldwide. To ensure
Millennials choose FRCH, the firm dedicates itself to helping them load their
toolbox with necessary skills.
Five years ago, FRCH launched FRCH University as a way for employees
to expand their knowledge and share information. "It started out as a way for
employees to develop leadership skills. We offered management classes,
classes about how to deal with conflict, classes about how to conduct a job
interview or a performance review," Szarwark says. Soon the in-house program
expanded to offer career development classes, like crash courses in
Photoshop and In Design, and workshops on how to give a presentation
to a client. Today, not only does the university offer leadership and career
development classes, but also painting, drawing and other art classes.
In the same vein, FRCH also heightens junior-level employees' exposure to
the latest trends in Interior Design by sending them to conferences like Global
Shop and NeoCon. But the exposure doesn't stop there. At least once a year,
FRCH ships a group of employees off to New York, Las Vegas, Chicago or
another city for a week of photography, contemplation and generally soaking
up the vanguard of Interior Design. "We invest a lot of money to make sure
our employees experience firsthand what's going on in the interior design
world," Szarwark says. "To us, though, that's an investment in our employees'
development."
MENTOR ME
Millennials crave feedback. And while the group recognizes their bosses have
more responsibility than simply mentoring them, it's important that
Millennials receive some feedback weekly or bi-weekly from someone in the organization - and that person doesn't have to be in a leadership role.
"Millennials trust their peers," Healy says. "They don't need someone
with 20 years of experience. They'll listen to and benefit from feedback
[given by] a second- or third-year employee."
In the past, DFDG has used a structured mentoring program - every staff
member is paired with a principal - to nurture younger employees. The
original intent of the program was to promote constant feedback, which in
turn would foster employee growth. However, a recent anonymous employee
survey showed younger employees at DFDG crave more communication.
Armed with new insight, the principals re-evaluated the mentor program
and, upon closer inspection, found it wasn't the well-oiled machine they
thought it was. "We get so busy that it's hard to stay in touch with your
mentor relationship," Seyer says.
In the interim, as DFDG continues the mentor program evaluation, it is
working with a facilitator that will conduct in-house training seminars and
team-building workshops. Through these exercises, the principals hope to let
younger staff members identify strengths and weaknesses. "We're hoping the
[increased efforts] will make them feel more connected and make them feel like
they have a purpose at DFDG," Seyer says.
But mentoring doesn't have to be a formal process. A few years ago, a
young staff member told Seyer that, as DFDG Vice President, she needed to
be more available and visible. Now, every day she tries to take an afternoon
stroll through the office to check in with her team. Kulik sees and appreciates
his boss' efforts. He likes working for someone who can "take 20 minutes
out of her day to see how the team is doing."
CREATING A CULTURE
Part of attracting and retaining Millennials involves providing a collaborative
and welcoming workplace culture. Like many design firms, FRCH has an
open work environment and clusters employees in studios to foster creativity
and idea-sharing. But culture is more than an open floorplan at FRCH.
From wedding anniversaries to birthdays to jobs well-done, every milestone
is an opportunity to eat some cake and share laughs with those you
may otherwise only see while waiting for the elevator. The firm also periodically
closes its doors and sends all 300 employees to a place like Keeneland
Horse Track in Lexington, Ky.
"Around Cincinnati, we're known for our events," Szarwark says. An
event at FRCH is more than the obligatory Christmas party. This summer at
the company picnic, held at Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park, there were activities
for kids, a wine tasting, three bands, a fireworks show and even an
appearance by a portion of the University of Cincinnati's marching band.
"To attract people, you can only hope you're offering competitive salary
and good benefits," Szarwark says. "But to really retain people, it's about
the total culture of the company."
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