Millennials: a Shiny Face on All Behaviour

Posted on by Stuart Murray
Untitled Photo Courtesy of Bina. (=)
Untitled photo courtesy of Bina.

How much can we talk about people without talking about people data?  Not very much, it appears.  Those dealing with employees of all types must know more about their hearts and souls than ever before.  And if you make one false move with a data point, your most brilliant philosophical insights can be taken sideways.

In December 2016, author Simon Sinek was interviewed on Inside Quest on the topic of Millennials.  I am a big fan of Sinek, having changed my approach to work based on his influential TED talk on how to Start With Why. The Inside Quest interview (20 minutes long) is also great because it covers many key topics.

Sinek posted a follow-up video days later to clarify much of what he had to say.  There was a dramatic change in body language.  In the first video he seemed calm and knowledgeable.  However, in the follow-up video (from what appears to be his dining-room) he is a little sheepish, making clarifications, imploring people to keep the conversation alive with constructive criticism.  The first interview had gone a tad viral and he got a lot of feedback.

During the Inside Quest interview he made piercing social criticism and attributed a lot of what was happening in society to the experience and context of millennials.  In what should be described as “a good problem to have,” he understated the importance of his critique.  You see, the things he said were true for many of us regardless of generation.

His critique?  We must learn to wait.  We must put time and years into our greatest accomplishments.  We are lonely because we are embarrassed to talk about our disappointments and frustrations.  We need to talk through our difficulties.  We must aspire to engage in sincere conversations.  We must help others.  Look up from your phone and be human.

In my opinion these are all massive issues for workplace culture.  Managers are struggling to learn how to compel their staff to work hard without being coercive or demeaning.  Everyone who takes benefits costs seriously is now hyper-sensitive to whether employees can talk openly about mental health and wellbeing.  Executives worried about people quitting are stumbling onto growing evidence that people want to thrive and grow.  And still, the dream persists that we can all succeed.

I think that these topics entered the mainstream concurrent with the rise of the millennial workforce, not necessarily because of them.  The analytics that identify turnover trends happened largely because of emerging technology; the de-stigmatization of mental illness was popularized by baby-boomer medical professionals; smart phones have been improving for decades; and teachers have been pushing anti-bullying efforts for some time.  These things came sharply into focus when millennials first started to speak their minds in the workplace.

Based on his dining-room talk, it appears that Sinek’s feedback came from many non-millennials who want in on the broader discussion.  This is important from a social perspective.  But the social perspective is the flip-side of a data issue.  That is because he got tripped up by a data-labelling error.  You see, he casually referred to millennials has having been born approximately 1984 and after.  He didn’t specify a 20-year generational cohort.  He left it open-ended, like there was an unlimited supply of this generation being born every day.  This is problematic because we need good definitions to determine if there are clear differences between clear categories.  If the definition is muddy, then the identification of differences will be muddy as well.

I have had the pleasure of working with clearly defined data where I described millennials as those born from 1976 to 1995.  By getting specific about date of birth, you will find that each year you look at the data the findings can shift.  Age and generation are not the same things, and if you look at the two separately you might find, for example, that millennials as a generation do not have different quit rates.  Or you might find that concerns about career advancement are widespread (more on that in a future post).

For me this is an excellent example of how workplace analytics and workplace culture are never that far from one another.  To love humans is to wish the very best for them and their data.

Let’s Just Pretend This is Normal

Posted on by Stuart Murray
cocoa #22, by nao-cha
cocoa #22.  Courtesy of nao-cha

It’s important for employers to watch labor market trends because it gives us a glimpse into the workplace culture of the near-future.  Between the rows of statistics we see an emerging screwball comedy which could play out in selection interviews and corporate back-offices.  Following the plot is important for our own careers, but it’s also important for keeping amused.

There are forecasts that the second quarter of 2017 will see a jump in new hires in the US.  This interesting article by Scott Scanlon of Hunt Scanlon Media notes that employers had been waiting-out the hype of a change of US President, and are now choosing to hire more staff.  It’s partially a result of a few quarters of employers standing pat through the election period.

Regardless of whether one agrees with Trump’s policies you have to admit that he is provoking activity.  Whether it’s the sporadic cancellation of plans to relocate plants outside of the US, or the increased activity at law-enforcement agencies, or the growing likelihood a wall will be constructed on the border with Mexico, lots of people are running around doing more work.  Whether the changes are good or sustainable is not relevant to the fact that increased activity creates jobs.  And job growth has a knock-on effect on consumer confidence and housing starts.

Employers anticipate an emerging talent shortage.  However, the employers themselves are partly to blame.  Hiring managers expect to hire the very best people when they open a posting.  Can you think of any solutions?  I have an idea; how about we get rid of perfectionism amongst hiring managers?  After several decades of employers always having the upper hand, organizations might have developed a management culture that is incompatible with job-seekers calling the shots.

Also, employers have been reluctant to hire candidates to grow into a role, or to invest in developing talent.  What ever shall we do?  Change gears by hiring candidates who can grow into a role, and then invest in their talents?  It seems like such a strange thing to do!

There are “job seekers looking for 20-plus [percentage] increases in salary to make up for the lack of raises and increases over the past few years…”  Employers are responding by shifting to an on-demand workforce, referred to elsewhere as the Gig Economy.  But people taking gigs will often charge double or triple the rate of a salaried employee.

Employers can’t handle the humiliation of acknowledging that union representatives and millennials have had totally reasonable expectations all along.  We’re obliging people to triple their wage, come up with a company name for their services, and then skip HR and just talk to supply management about their vendor contract.  Business leaders aren’t in this for the money anymore; they have to maintain composure.

All that’s missing is an economy where all of these contractors collect receipts to reduce the taxes on their business.  So… who’s going to pay for that wall?

New-Hire Enthusiasm Makes Liars of Us All

Posted on by Stuart Murray
game-time-by-michael-neel-v3
Game Time, courtesy of Michael Neel.

This interesting blog post by Mike West from One Model describes a data anomaly in “Best Employer” awards.  Many of these awards are based on employee engagement surveys, which are consistent and scientific, but susceptible to a subtle sampling bias.

The issue is that engagement is highest for new employees.  I have seen this phenomenon in other surveys, and I have pondered why this would be true.  It will make sense when you consider your personal experience.  When you are first employed, you have recently chosen to work for that employer, you have just been chosen by the manager, and you get the greatest concentration of training and personal attention.

By contrast, years later you might wish you could work elsewhere, even if you have not made an effort to move.  You may have changed managers, breaking the personal sense of loyalty and trust.  Even under a favorable scenario you will be deemed “fully-performing” …and be neglected as a result.  Negative career events occur over the years, and with greater length of service you will have more opportunity for annoyances, defeats, and betrayals.  You might leave, and lo and behold the cycle starts all over again!

Mike West notes that growing companies hire more staff into brand new positions.  This means a larger fraction of their workforce have less than one year of job tenure, which means a larger fraction of the survey sample will have high engagement.  Yes, it is nice to work for a growing company, but growth itself is not what makes people happy.

If you were the only new hire in a company that is stable in size and has low turnover, you might be just as excited as a peer who joined a growing company.  But the growing company would get a better score.  The article references the constantly-growing Google, often rated the very best employer.  Google tends to lose the top spot when they hire fewer people.

So, how do you game the awards?  Make email addresses for new staff more readily available.  How to correct this anomaly?  Companies conducting surveys should report the data on a stratified basis, adjusting for length of service.  Or, run a multivariate model which isolates employee culture and adjusts for the length-of-service effect.

But hey, it’s math.  It’s all fun and games until someone loses an award.

Rainer Strack TED Talk

Posted on by Stuart Murray

 

stack-of-rainier-no-rights-claimed
A Stack of Rainier, no relation.

This TED Talk is one of the most compelling explanations of why workforce planning is so important to the business success of major employers.  He takes it global and forecasts into 2030.  With jokes.