Recruiting and Retaining: Generation Y's Attitude Towards Work: And Why Love Matters

As organizations struggle with retaining and recruiting Gen Y's focus should be placed on the difference between this generations and other previous generations idea of what represents a rewarding career.

For Gen Y love matters more than ever. They've seen there parents work dead-end jobs, work jobs they sort of liked, working to climb up the ladder. They don't have the skepticism of Gen X. They are optimistic that a person a career can be rewarding, happiness can come from work, but also they understand the perils of not finding one.

Traditionalist: were concerned with loyalty and a sense of duty. Happiness was a byproduct of doing hard work.

Boomers: wanted to get ahead, move up the ladder and they were fortunate to have a good job in the uber-competitive job market they entered.

X'ers: were more focused on work/life balance. They valued happiness, but didn't see it as tied to a rewarding career, rather something that comes from having more balance.

Gen Y: firmly believes a career can create happiness, it's about finding the right fit.

The opportunity and the challenge is to find and only hire the people who have the ability to love their field and their career. Tap into what they love and let it be their career. For example, I was a creative writing major. Well there aren't a lot of obvious opportunities for a creative writing in business...unless you look for it. You're reading it right now. Writing this blog wasn't my job when I started, it is certainly part of it now. When I was hired my responsibilities included almost zero writing. Now I write more than ever. It is what I love to do and the people I work for understand that and allow me to find opportunities to write, thereby allowing me to LOVE my job.

I'd like to go on with my thoughts but perhaps what would give the most insight is having you take a peak for yourself into the heads of some other Gen Y's. Take a look at the following two excerpts. They were written by two former students, both Gen Y's about their experience during their internships. Try to keep in mind the value they place on happiness and doing what you love.

Earthquakes and Epiphanies
"I came upon an epiphany.

It's not secret that it's HARD to break into the industry and that entry level pay can be bested by any server at a decent restaurant. To some, that proves to be super scary.

When I was in high school it was all about the money. I wanted to make bank as an architect or maybe a lawyer. Whatever it was, I wanted to make sure I made the bug bucks......some of you just smiled. WELL, fast forward a couple years and here I am.

The world of advertising.

I see what the work is like every day and I know exactly what the pay would be...and you know what? I couldn't care less. I am so drop dead in love with advertising that my priorities have completely changed. Don't get me wrong, I want to be able to save money for retirement and buy property asap. It's just going to take some budgeting miracles from heaven, and a lot of over-time.

You really need to love it. Advertising can seem sexy, but it's more like an ugly baby. Yes, you may it's cute, but that's only because you're the parent- you love it no matter what."
Joseph Rector

It's All About The Attitude
"I have been pretty unhappy with my internship. Eventually, I had decided that it was just that I was in the wrong department.

Then one day I walked in, and my supervisor told me she quit. I have NEVER seen her so happy. Turns out, she actually does have a personality under all that plainness. When she thought she would be working there for years, she spent most of her time on the computer with headphones in, ignoring me....If I went and found work in another department, she would tell me that I have to stick to her department (even if they had me wake up early to spend 20 hours a week sitting in a chair and starring at a wall)....

Well, let me tell you what, as soon as that woman quit, my internship became a lot more pleasant. I can't tell if her attitude change was because she stopped caring, or because she was genuinely happy. But I can finally say that she did manage to teach me somethings. First, your attitude can affect all the people around you (yes, pretty much everyone in media has been more pleasant since she left). And second, if work makes you so miserable that you aren't yourself anymore, it's not job for you.

So I say thanks, I may not know more about research, media, reach, frequency, SRDS, or anything that made me agree to be the media intern, but I certainly did learn something valuable about life. So I wish her good luck, and hope she finds something she loves. And God bless anyone who has to work with her if she doesn't"
Vanessa McPhill