Let’s start with the good news: when it comes to hiring organization development experts and coaches, multinational companies are at the top of the food chain. The bar is low, no question.
Although it’s too early to call it a common practice, more and more top managers use coaches at some point in their career. We’re not only targeting them, though. Our mission is to promote the coaching culture, for which the younger generation is key. I mean the talents that the company wants to rely on in 5-10 years.
Talent management or graduate management programmes are often in the focus of companies. However, there’s only an infinitesimally low number of businesses where talents are given individual coaching beyond the general programmes, even though every survey confirms that Generation Yers/Zers are much more attracted by the significantly richer toolkit of individual coaching.
You can read a lot about us, the Gen Yers here or in the publications of other organizations, but most articles still refer to us as if we were a special species that you need to learn how to handle. You don’t need to learn to handle us. Just learn to motivate us. We can function on our own, well or badly, that’s a matter of your point of view, but either way, quickly. We don’t stay long at one company; we soon lose our motivation and it’s hard to get us to commit.
You could at least try, though. However, the company laptop, the home office and the free cornflakes might not suffice. You don’t need to give up on Gen Yers and accept that they spend no more than 3 years at a company. You can do something about it, because there’s a lot of evidence that the investment into Gen Yers can pay off. It may be difficult to get their motivation up, but once you’ve done it, you’d better brace yourself if you want to keep up with them. We are faster to adapt, learn and grow than any of the previous generations.
Also, no matter you decide to try and chain them to your company or accept that you will quickly lose your Yers, you can only put off the problem temporarily either way. Today you can still hire a Gen Xer instead of a corporation-hopping highflyer Gen Yer, but what happens in a few years’ time?
According to generation gurus, 50% and 75% of the entire labour market will consist of Yers by 2020 and 2025, respectively.
What you need to learn is not how to handle Gen Yers, but how to retain them. There’s no Plan B.
To solve this problem, we usually recommend laying down (either on your own or together with us in a workshop) how you want to reduce your fluctuation. Develop a strategy to build a generation-independent organization. Then start carrying it out.
If you want to know how we can help you with that, check out our services.