For Gen Y do the opposite

One of the greatest scenes in Seinfeld is when George Costanza decides that his entire life has been made up of mistakes and so he concludes doing the opposite of his intuition will lead to success. Employers would do good to employ a little Costanza reasoning when creating policies to engage, motivate and recruit Gen Y.

As a Gen Y, I can tell you we don't understand the hierarchical overbearing policies you have in place. Though Gen X has made great strides in the way of creating work/life balance it seems many organizations still want a report on how many times we've used the restroom in week.

A common corporate policy is to restrict workplace computer use to "work only" use. Specifically, some companies go as far as to block websites or even worse to monitor employee computers. I personally know people who've been confronted by employers who said to them "why does it show on your computer that you were checking your personal email." Of course the employer didn't consider the time at which the sites were visited which happened to be late in the evening as the computer was a laptop and the employee took it home to finish up work. As a Gen Y the idea of someone monitoring my website use makes me vomit a little. Our parents didn't watch us this closely, why would our employer?

As a Gen Y, our attitude is what's the big deal? If our work is done what difference should it make? Why not take a moment and examine your corporate policy. Rather than restrict employees from using Facebook at work why not empower them, encourage them to? How can you turn their existing social networking behavior into an asset? Gen Y values collaboration, do you understand the harm in creating a work environment that isolates?

Another policy detested by Gen Y has to do with sharing ideas and communication and I'll tell you why it makes us want to leave your organization but right now I don't feel like writing so until tomorrow...