Do we need weekends?

Asks Tammy Erikson on her Harvard Review post, which makes for an interesting read.

Most workers follow a Monday to Friday pattern, relax at the weekends. Erickson believes that the declining need for synchronous tasks and the development of Web 2.0 tools means that the idea of a corporation telling us which days to work (and when to “rest”) can become outdated. She points out that the key driver for syncronous presence (or perhaps rationalisation?) is meetings. She makes reference to Best Buy and how with their shift from a time-based to a task-based management approach, soon found many meetings being canceled and people decided that it wasn’t really necessary to get together physically – at least not nearly as often – to get things done. That of course would be totally no surprise to Gen Y's who grow up using networking tools and can tell you how much easier and faster it is to do this with Web 2.0 tools.

So would you prefer to name the days, hours, and location of when you work? If you could set your own schedule, what would you choose?

Finding, hiring and keeping Gen Y talent – An insiders view

As someone who is a very young Baby Boomer - or an ancient Gen X - it's great to share with you an article written by a colleague of mine from Atos Consulting. Tasha How describes herself as a typical "80's child" who pretty much follows the Gen Y blueprint. What is interesting, however, are Tasha's thoughts and reflections of a new generation building their - and her career. She concludes with some top tips. Over to you Tasha...

I faced a disappointing realisation today…. All this time I’d thought I was individual and unique but, it turns out, perhaps I am just a typical ’Gen Y.’

Born in 1983, I have grown up with a PC at home, various games consoles and a mobile phone since I was about 15. I check my Facebook account every couple of days and I’m more likely to plan my social life by text or email than on the phone or in person. I can’t tell you the last time I thought to look at a map – if the Sat Nav isn’t working then at the very least the online Route Finder will get me to where I need to be! I expect convenience and to be able to access services when it suits me – after all, I barely really remember the days before Sunday trading, my local supermarket is open 24 hours a day and I do all my banking online.

So what does all this mean for my career, my expectations in the workplace and how my employer can best retain me?

Recruiting Gen Y
For a start a prospective employer needs to find me (note, they need to find me at least as much as I need to find them! I genuinely believe I have power in this relationship).

So, how to recruit a Gen Y?
I secured my current job simply by putting my CV online - then the job found me! My CV was picked up by an agent and within a week I had a couple of interviews lined up and had accepted my role within a month.

Gen Y will undoubtedly look online as their first (and sometimes only) port of call, so at the bare minimum the position needs to be readily available online and the company would definitely benefit from appearing using the common search engines. But to recruit people like me, that probably isn’t enough. The onus becomes on the recruiting employer to be the active party – searching for candidates on business networking sites, getting referrals from your current employees and using a good recruitment agent will be much more likely to put us in touch than waiting for me to reply to a well hidden advert! Mind you, that’s not to say I’m lazy; if I know of a top company in the industry I want to work in, I’ll get in touch with them irrespective of whether their advertising for jobs – after all, I’m confident I can add value for them.

It’s also worth remembering that if you’re trying to recruit a recent graduate, they may well be out of the country – Gen Y’s have grown up with foreign travel and think nothing of taking 12 months out to find themselves. It’s worth thinking about whether someone sat in an internet café in Australia could easily find, apply and be screened for the job you’re advertising.

Retaining Gen Y
Apparently, the fact that I get bored easily is just another part of being a ‘Gen Y.’ Perhaps it’s down to having so many options available to keep me entertained as a kid, or perhaps its not; but whatever the reason, the fact is I need variety and challenge to keep me interested in my job.

My first job was on a grad scheme that promised 3 different placements over a 2 year period plus studying for a professional qualification; Impatient as I am, I decided to compress my 3 placements into 18 months and then moved on to a new role in the organisation with its own series of new challenges! I now work as a consultant, the main attraction of the job being the opportunity to change projects, roles, teams and even companies (clients) virtually every 6 months.

The most important factor to retain me in a job is to keep me challenged and I have friends who have left their jobs with nothing lined up to go to, simply because they were bored at work. If the work isn’t challenging in itself, then at the very least I need a tight deadline to give me a push! So job design and line management are both massively important to make sure the challenge is lasting and the job is richly varied. While Gen Y aren’t known for their corporate loyalty or ‘job for life’ attitude, variety within a career can still be an option within a single organisation for a reasonable amount of time.

Going back to believing that I can add value to organisations, it’s important to me that I can see how my employer is helping to add value to my CV. On the job learning and investing in personal development are like hygiene factors for Gen Y – if they can’t see how their gaining transferable skills then they may well leave before their CV is too heavily eroded.

In terms of reward, money is important to the extent that living is expensive – joining the property ladder in recent years with a 100% mortgage plus a student loan, often a car loan and an active social life means that a Gen Y, undoubtedly like many generations before, will have certain needs and expectations about their basic salary. But equally the concept of ‘total reward’ is fitting for retaining Gen Y. Work like balance is important and the ability to fit work around life in general – perhaps it’s a reflection of the levels of convenience we’ve grown used to.

When I think of my friends, money is a big motivator for some, but the one who is the most motivated in their job doesn’t earn the most money, or have the best pension (many of us aren’t thinking that far ahead and, to be honest, question whether a pension will even be worth the paper it’s written on by the time we’re eventually able to retire), or even have the most holiday allowance… it’s the one who has fun at work, socialises regularly with her team and her boss, and who recently won a trip to an exotic island with other top performing team mates. It may be a coincidence that she also happens to live close the office so has minimal travel time, cost or hassle, but there’s no denying that having time to go to the gym after work and still be home in time for Eastenders is a plus point!

So what?
That’s the burning question. So what?

The reality is Gen Y are joining the workforce now and will continue to be an important part of your employee base for the next 40 years or more. In the UK we have an ageing workforce and so organisations must find effective ways to balance the hugely different needs of the various different generations on which they rely as employees and current and future leaders.

As a Gen Y myself, these are my top five tips for recruiting and retaining Gen Y talent:

1. Make sure jobs are well designed to be challenging and varied
2. Ensure line managers are given adequate training to be capable of keeping their top performers motivated and stretched
3. Offer opportunities for individuals to hold a variety of roles within the company over a number of years
4. Make sure you provide developmental support that the employee values for their long term career plans and not just to meet the needs of their current role
5. Remember that Gen Y’s believe they can move on at any time: become complacent at your peril – they won’t necessarily be loyal enough to wait for the organisation to turn around the next corner!

Is your organisation doing this in 2008?

As we approach the mid-way point of 2008 - it set me thinking. January of every year always sees a glut of writing around trends and "must dos". Here are three trends that I thought would make an impact in 2008.

Paperless Colleges and Universities: Today’s college students — part of the “net generation” that was born between 1980 and 1994 — have grown up with technology. They were born around the time the first PC was introduced, and approximately 20 percent were using computers by the time they were 6 years old. Today, as they enter the university classroom, they are experiencing a brave new world of learning without textbooks. Case in point: Assistant Professor Jerry Kane at Boston College teaches a class titled “Computers in Management,” which uses no textbooks. Instead, Kane has replaced books with wikis as the primary learning tool. This allows for improved collaboration among students, as well as a way to integrate RSS news feeds directly into class, making learning more relevant. As a corporate learning professional, you should take note and think about how learning can be similarly redesigned for the net generation.

Web 2.0 Tools for Corporate Learning: According to a recent ComScore Media Metrix report, teen usage of Web-based e-mail dropped 8 percent in 2007, and IM usage is expected to reach 46 billion messages by 2009. Members of the net generation are almost exclusively using an arsenal of Web 2.0 tools, such as instant messaging, blogs, wikis, Facebook posts, and podcasts, to network, learn and communicate.
One company using Web 2.0 tools for learning in an innovative way is Intel Corp. They have created an in-house wiki called Intelpedia. This is a way for Intel employees to share knowledge, collaborate with employees and post need-to-know company information in a safe, behind-the-firewall space. Within the first six months, more than 10,000 page lookups were tracked and Intelpedia has quickly become the go-to place for new recruits who need to know what an Intel acronym means or want the latest update on a project.
In the UK, BT have made full use of tools such as wikis, blogs, social media and tagging behind their firewall to enhance collaboration and networking amongst their employees.

Free Offerings in Corporate Learning Portals: There is a plethora of free learning your organization can link to on the Web. One of the most comprehensive of these is MIT Open Courseware Consortium. (You can find this at http://ocw.mit.edu.) MIT Open Courseware has thrived by sharing free lecture notes, exams and other resources for its more than 1,800 courses in areas such as engineering, computer software, economics and health sciences, to name just a few. There also are more than 100 universities around the globe that have added their content in local languages to form the MIT Open Courseware Consortium. While MIT originally designed this for faculty usage, it turns out more than 50 percent of users are corporate “self learners.”
Another free resource is the Free Management Library, http://www.managementhelp.org/. This is a free online resource of 650 topics, spanning 5,000 links. Topics include areas such as leadership development, change management, marketing, finance, training and development, performance management and crisis management. In addition, each topic has recommended books and related library links contributed by community members.

Groundswell - the power of Social Networking

Groundswell is a fascinating book from Harvard Business Press and written by two Forrester researchers - Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li.

It is essentially a treatise about the power of social networking technologies when successfully applied in a business setting. For me - the cornerstone the book is Li and Bernoff's research and application of what they term Social Technographics. It identifies people as ranging from Inactives (in terms of social technologies) to Creators.

Their research spans several countries and demographic ranges and provides some great case studies and anecdotes showcasing organisations who have exploited this trend. For example - BMW in the USA studied the Social Technographic profile of their Mini owners and found they were well above the norm in terms of their participation as Creators and Critics. They used this to create and harness an online community buzz and organise car rallies. Over 2,100 images were placed on Flickr and several Mini videos appeared on YouTube. Online monitoring organisations were able to show that when online community activity increased - so did sales the following month.

_______________________________________________

Me and my colleagues at Atos Consulting are actively looking at the issues of workforce demographics; the ageing workforce and Generation Y recruitment. The research in this book caused several light bubs to come on all at once. According to Forrester - 59% of Gen Y join networking sites; 38% create content and 41% are critics. There's your marketing and engagement strategy in a nutshell. Organisations must create platforms and vehicles for connecting with Gen Y where they hang out online. But that's not enough. You must let them create and content, swap stories, offer critique.

How about the issue of all that tacit knowledge that will walk out the door of your organisation as many baby boomers retire? Easy say my KM experts at Atos; "We just need to provide them with the systems to capture, codify and share their knowledge". Trouble is - only 8% of that group are creators and only 8% are joiners of communities of any sort. So the problem shifts to "how am I going to engage and encourage these guys to participate in activities that are new and strange to them?"

As you may have guessed - I love this book!

http://www.groundswell.forrester.com/

Student's Facebook Study Group Falls Foul With Academics

Here's an interesting dilema reported by the Totonto Financial Post:

"Students at Ryerson University in Toronto were outraged when first-year student Chris Avenir was accused of cheating for running an online chemistry study group on Facebook.

More than 140 Generation Yers had joined the group to ask questions about homework assignments and simply could not understand why school administrators had a problem with that. Their only concern was for the group's administrator, who faced expulsion. The 18-year-old denied the academic misconduct allegation and took his fight before the engineering faculty's appeals committee, telling the media "this isn't any different from any library study group or peer tutoring."

But Ryerson's administration thought otherwise. Academic integrity was at stake, they said, and any threat to it -- even in the form of online tools -- is a risk that must be addressed and rightfully preserved.

In the end, the appeals committee ruled against expulsion but gave the student a zero on the assignments that were discussed on Facebook. But the story didn't end there. Instead, it has sparked a debate on the differences between Baby Boomer and Gen-Yers brains and the way they interact in the workplace."

Mmmm. So what are we to make of this? What is the difference between discussing coursework over the table at lunch - or on Facebook?

Challenging Assumptions at The Shopping Centre

Last Saturday at my local shopping centre my wife and I witnessed an incident. There was a commotion and panicked voices near the bottom of an escalator. People were shouting and looking at a scuffle halfway up. Three youths dressed in trackies and hoodies ran up the escalator, shouting as they did so - one of them pressed the stop button.

I'm rather ashamed to say that my initial thought was of some sort of fight or scuffle was taking place. After all, all the ingredients seemed to be there.

The reality was somewhat different. As I drew closer, I could see an elderly man was in difficulty and was close to collapsing or loosing his balance and falling backwards down the entire length of the escalator. His companion had cried out for help - unable to take the weight of the man herself. Hearing this - the three "hoodies" immediately ran up the escalator. Two held the man from the side and the third held him from behind. Without doubt the actions of these young men saved the man from serious injury. After the stop button was pressed they were able to calmly walk him to safety and sat him down before checking he and his companion were able to seek further help. They then slopped off in that familiar "Hip-Hop" strut.

Reflecting on this incident later in the evening, I felt heartened that a group of young people who are increasingly being branded as the root of all evil responded to an emergency almost instinctively. The incident was fleeting and transient. The did not know the elderly man; they did not seek praise - they just helped someone who was in a bit of trouble.

Student numbers are at risk as UK demographics shift

Universities face a shortfall of 70,000 students by the end of the next decade, as a result of a drop in the number of young people in the UK.

On current demographic trends, the full-time undergraduate student population of UK higher education institutions will fall by 4.6 per cent by 2020, or 70,000 full-time under­graduate places, according to an analysis for Universities UK.

One of the authors of the report, The Future Size and Shape of the HE Sector in the UK, says universities will have to “seize new markets” for older, part-time, work-based and overseas students.

The report also predicts stiffer competition for students between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as demographic changes vary between regions. The report forms part of a series of seven reviews, commissioned last month by Universities Secretary John Denham, into the long-term future of higher education in Britain.

It predicts that the 2020 UK dip will have reversed by 2027, by which time total student numbers will be up by 2.1 per cent, with the biggest growth in part-time undergraduates and full-time postgraduates. But this recovery masks long-term prob-lems in Scotland, which may see full-time undergraduate numbers drop 8.4 per cent by 2027, as well as in Wales (down 4.9 per cent) and Northern Ireland (down 13.1 per cent) – compared with a 2.9 per cent rise in England.