Leading and Managing Millennials
While we shouldn’t try to stereotype and entire generation, one thing is certain; Millennials (born 1982-2004) have different expectations of management than Generation X (ages 35-50). Their main expectation? Millennials want managers who understand and demonstrate leadership, and fundamentally that means managers who ‘get’ people. Leading and Managing Millennials effectively requires a different skillset.
“100% of employees are people, 100% of customers are people. If you don’t get people you don’t get business”
For anyone confused about the difference between management and leadership, top leaders when interviewed about management, tend to talk about skills and efficient business outcomes and when asked about leadership they talk about the people focused character and behaviours of a manager. Management and leadership of course go together and particularly when it comes to Millennials.
It tended to be a top down management style that created high performing Generation X teams and Millennials don’t take too well to top down hierarchical management styles. When researching potential new employers, Millennials quickly dismiss companies with a reputation for ‘old style’ management and they actively search for those with a reputation for looking after their people. This means they look for personal development, respect, coaching, collaboration and mentoring.
Personal development and training
Millennials are keen to invest in their careers and tend not to be interested in the ‘time served’ notion of career advancement. For Millennials career progression isn’t just about promotion, it’s about learning new things, doing interesting work and feeling that they are making a genuine contribution to something more than their day job.
Gone are the days of annual reviews for Millennials, they perform much better with regular feedback and guidance from their managers. They have inhabited a world where just in time information is available through multiple digital channels and excel when their managers are good at providing bite-sized coaching. This not only help improve their performance but increases their loyalty to the organisation. According to a 2017 survey by Delloitte, young staff who are mentored stay with an employer twice as long as staff who don’t have a manger who provides coaching. Millennials thrive on on-line training to supplement formal training sessions.
Millennials take control of their careers
Some employers might think of Millennials as fickle and less loyal than the previous generation. Remember that they grew up watching Generation X being made redundant from specialist jobs they had committed their whole lives to without having many or any transferable skills.
Millennials take control of their careers and will seek other roles with other companies if they feel stifled in their current position. They are not afraid to make a move that provides the stimulus and modern management culture they want. That’s why it is so important to do more than manage them in their current role. Help them to develop their skills in a way that will support their career ambitions and you also build a reservoir of enthused and talented people who will help to drive the organisation forward.
A bigger purpose
Millennials want to know that their work makes a difference. They want to know how they fit into the bigger picture and how they are connected to the overall mission and values of the company. Poor managers who fail to inspire will often resort to the ‘because I say so” reason to carry out a task. Leaders who get the best out of Millennials get them fired up by being open and explaining why the task matters.
Collaboration and teamwork
Millennials prefer to collaborate with colleagues and teams and are not in awe of their managers. They tend to think of ‘bosses’ as team captains rather than their owners, as peers not superiors. There to facilitate the performance of the team not to brow beat efficiency and productivity out of them.
Understanding how to get the best out of Millennials is good business. They have grown up in a different time, have different expectations of the world of work and want to be treated with respect. They can teach all of us a thing or two about how best to treat all people, from whichever generation.
By Tricia Hay and David Tovey
Developing Future Leaders
In 2018 we sat down to explore what more our team could do to support the young people of Gloucestershire and the local community. We have been involved in many of the more traditional initiatives to help young people into work over the years. This year we wanted to find a way that we could best help the next generation to make their mark within in their organisations, build their own careers and at the same time make a positive contribution to their community.
David reminded us that he had given his son a watch for his 21st birthday engraved with the words “It is leadership, not time, that changes things”. It was then that we knew our initiative would focus on developing leadership skills.
“You manage things; you lead people”- Grace Hopper
The best organisations we work with in the UK and Internationally, tend to be those that can attract the best talent. Our experience is that the best people are attracted to those employers with a reputation for looking after their people and that is why leadership is so very important.
Well led businesses attract great people who develop great products and deliver a great customer experience. In turn that provides a great return to shareholders and other stakeholders whilst making a great contribution to society. What’s not to like?
Developing future leaders
Most global brands and large corporate organisations recognised the need to develop future leaders a long time ago and they have leadership development programmes in place. Indeed, David has designed and run several across a number of sectors.
We decided that we would bring to smaller organisations, most likely with no formal leadership development programme in place, some of the key element of a future leaders programme usually only available to larger businesses.
The programme will develop future leaders by providing six free places to young people (18-24) with an intensive and high impact series of monthly masterclasses. The focus will be on developing personal leaderships skills, building confidence, inspiring teams and will include an introduction to developing business strategy. We’ll be sure to report back on progress during the programme.
Leadership is about people and it is about change. The next generation of leaders will need to focus on change that is sustainable whilst devising new ways to live and work that fit with the needs and interest of not only themselves but of their employers, their families, their communities and an ever more intricately interconnected world.
We look forward to playing our part in helping them.
If you would like to know more or register an interest on behalf of yourself or a member of your team, email tricia.hay@first-base.co.uk or contact us.
By Tricia Hay and David Tovey
The Straight Talking Seminar is back – July 19th at The Old Lodge, Minchinhampton
Join my team and I on the 19th July to start the summer off with a bang. Some food for thought whilst you’re on the beach #CustomerExperience plus the launch of our Leadership Challenge #TheGoodRecruitmentCampaign #Growth
Book via Linked in at https://bit.ly/2LLZWks
Should you tailor your cv?
The short answer is yes, you should tailor your CV. As a recruiter I see a wide variety of formats, styles and approaches to CV’s but the ones that really stand out are the ones that ‘check the boxes’ of my client’s requirements. With that being said, it is important to still be honest! Ensure you highlight relevant skills and experience, but if you say you have experience using a certain type of software or system because you think it will help you secure the job you are looking for, you will soon come unstuck when you are expected to complete tasks you simply cannot do.
So, what is the right approach? My advice is to think about the job you want to secure and then think about what skills you needed in your past roles that are applicable. Don’t just list your ‘key responsibilities’ as they would appear on your contract – think about what skills you use that are transferable to your dream job. For example, if you worked in retail and want to get into a customer service role then instead of putting ‘dealing with customers’ you could highlight ‘providing excellent levels of customer service’ and instead of ‘restocking items’ you could phrase it as ‘monitoring stock and ensuring relevant records are accurately maintained’.
Remember, your CV is your golden ticket to your future and if you want to take the next step in your career, or change paths completely, it is vital that you communicate to a potential employer why they should be giving you this opportunity over everyone else. Tailoring your CV can not only help demonstrate that you have transferable skills that can benefit their business, but also that you have the work ethic to really put effort into securing that job you’re dreaming of.
If you need some help in your job-search please register or contact us for an informal chat.
Nathan Hughes, Talent Spotter
We’re recruiting
We’re recruiting for a really switched on person who will hunt down and connect with the right people for us. Magda continues to try all options but she needs help. https://bit.ly/2rgC8vR
Team Building Success
After a great first quarter’s work from my team, I thought long and hard about an appropriate reward for my team. I decided on “locking them in a room to see if they could escape”…
Well done guys. The Haunted House team got out with 33 seconds to go and the Prison Break(ers) had 5 mins left.
Thank you to Trapped (Eastgate Street, Gloucester) for a fabulous experience. We’ll definitely be back to beat our times!After a great first quarter’s work from my team, I thought long and hard about an appropriate reward for my team. I decided on “locking them in a room to see if they could escape”…
Customer Experience – Putting Employees First
The topic of customer service and customer experience has been coming up in lots of client conversations as well as at networking meetings lately.
As my colleague and First Base Director David Tovey is writing a book on the subject we put our heads together to agree some thoughts and tips. Customer experience has been described as “the next competitive battleground for businesses that want to differentiate themselves” – so it’s a pretty important subject.
Firstly, there is a difference between ‘Customer Service’ and ‘Customer Experience’.
Customer service tends to be more about the interaction involving customer facing staff. Customer experience on the other hand takes into account all the interactions that a customer has with a company. There can be many different ways a customer ‘experiences’ what it is really like to buy a particular product or service. It is the sum of all those interactions that form the opinions of a customer about a supplier, whether they become loyal customers and what they tell other people.
Employees first
Both of us are clear that the companies delivering an excellent customer experience are not those who put the customer first. It is those companies that first make sure that their employee experience is excellent.
It should go without saying that if the person who works at a company is 100% proud of the Brand, is given the tools to do a good job and are treated well, they are going to be happy, Happy employees WANT to give customers a great experience.
It’s a leadership issue
All the research suggests that there is a significant difference between what senior managers in a business think the company delivers in terms of customer experience and what customers really think. If customer experience isn’t regular featured on the board’s agenda, it is likely that it isn’t on the agenda of anyone else in the business.
When everyone in an organisation is striving to deliver an excellent customer experience, the results are happy employees, happy and loyal customers and happy shareholders.
If you would like to know more about the connection between recruiting the right people, engaging them and building an even more successful business, let us know.
Sharon Adams and David Tovey
Miracle growing
Mags just popped back in – brought this with her to “Grow some candidates”
Well done Mags, always thinking of how to find the right talent for our rather fabulous clients :0) :0)
Our Lilly turns one: Happy First Base Birthday
Lilly Chappell turned one last week and we celebrated her First Base Birthday in style (okay, some delicious cake, some celebrations, and some well deserved praise!). We are so so proud of how she’s doing – Lilly is a great addition to our team and is absolutely focused on getting things just right for our clients and for our candidates too. She now heads up the commercial team and is working hard to source work for the hundreds of candidates she and Beth look after.
Happy belated First Base Birthday Lilly. You’re a dream to work with!
Hospitality sector – desperate scramble to fill vacancies
The recent Manpower survey of over 2000 UK businesses reflects our own local experience that whilst jobs confidence is high, some sectors are ‘desperate’ to fill vacancies as Brexit becomes a reality.
The hospitality sector has been performing particularly well in terms of jobs (up 16% in 2017) – but there are definitely signs that some employers are in a desperate scramble to find the right people, with an increasing number citing post Brexit fears.
“Up to 24% of all hospitality staff come from the EU” – Manpower Survey
Employers fear a national shortfall of up to 750,000 people post Brexit and are pushing forward with recruitment to make up the shortfall as the number of EU workers arriving in the UK is already reported as falling.
Business rates have hit the sector hard and with the recent closure announcements by Prezzo, Byron and Jamie’s Italian, the survey highlights high levels of concern that Brexit will cut off a stream of workers from the EU that the sector is so highly dependent on.
With a potential shortage of staff looming, we are working closely with our clients in hospitality to make sure they have plans in place to avoid any negative effects on their business.
Trica Hay – MD First Base