Across Australia and throughout the western world, employers and managers are facing many of the same challenges with young employees.
Speaking of the talented and ambitious 20-somethings flooding the workforce, older managers talk of the presumption, unwarranted confidence and sense of entitlement they themselves never dared display in their early career years. Above this, managers speak of the frustration they feel when young team members soak up the training, mentoring and input they are offered only to turn around and move on to the next position that comes up which is perceived as an advancement. ‘Where is the loyalty’ employers will often ask?
Not too many decades ago, loyalty was a somewhat inherent part of an employment contract and to some extent carried with it a moral dimension. If an employer had been willing to offer you a good job and then train and develop your skills, you offered your loyalty in return. Furthermore, employee loyalty often carried beyond the professional and into the personal realm. For instance, if the company you worked for was criticised in conversation at a weekend BBQ, there was almost an obligation to defend the company you felt loyalty to.
In such an era, when an individual got a new job, this step would sometimes be described as joining a new company. The inference was that the employee was, in a sense, joining a family that would look after their needs for financial stability and in return they would offer loyalty, commitment and a strong work ethic. From such a perspective, loyalty is directly related to longevity; you prove how loyal you are by how long you stay. As such, any older generations would stay working for one employer for much if not all of their career and wear their long service as a badge of honour.
In stark contrast, Gen Y tend not to approach loyalty in the same way their parents and employers do. When young people get a new job, they don’t ‘join’ a company, they simply work for them. Work is just something this generation does, it is not intrinsic to their identity, worth or value. For this group, loyalty and longevity are no longer directly related, in fact they are often seen as completely unrelated. For many young people, loyalty is no longer part of the job equation.
In keeping with their reputation, it is generally true young people start a new job with the clear (but often unexpressed) goal of staying around just long enough to learn, gain skills, and develop contacts before moving on to the next opportunity that offers them more. It is not uncommon for employers to report average tenure figures of less than 3 years for this group.
So what is driving this lack of loyalty? Why are young people so unwilling to commit to the long haul and can anything be done to slow the rate of staff turnover with young people? In looking at why young people seem to lack loyalty to employers, there are 3 likely reasons:
- Gen Y have grown up in an era of unparalleled economic prosperity
Prior to the GFC, Gen Y had grown up in an era of great prosperity where jobs were plentiful and employees were in a more powerful bargaining position than they have ever been. All this group grew up hearing about was the skills shortage, the war for talent and unemployment at record-breaking low levels. As such, good jobs came to be seen as a right rather than a privilege. Young people didn’t think twice before leaving a safe secure job to take up a different position in a new company or industry if they deemed it would offer them more.
This mentality stood in stark contrast to that of their parents who were often loyal not only out of virtue but through fear. Many older generation workers stayed, and continue to stay, working in positions that they don’t like simply because they fear that if they leave their current job they may not find another as good. For this group, the devil you know is better than the one you don’t and staying put seems the wisest and safest option.
Even though the global downturn has somewhat slowed the rates of turnover in young people, early indicators are that it has done little to change their basic attitudes and expectations. As domestic economies continue to improve in the coming 12-18 months, simply watch as the carousel of job-hopping start spinning all over again.
Once the global downturn becomes a thing of the past, the fundamentals driving the pre-GFC labour market will quickly return; we will still have an aging workforce and areas of dramatic skills shortage. As such, Gen Y will again have employment options and the power these afford them.
- They have not had loyalty modelled to them
Although Gen Y had never known what society-wide economic adversity felt like firsthand until recently, they did remember how the last downturn affected their parents. Many of them saw their parents get outsourced, right-sized, downsized and laid off by the very same employers their parents had been loyal to for years.
Seeing how companies treated their parents, Gen Ys developed a rather cynical view of loyalty towards employers; if employers could disregard loyalty as soon as it suited them, then they certainly weren’t to be trusted. Ironically, it is many of the same companies that laid off Gen Y’s parents 20 years ago that are now complaining that this group won’t show loyalty.
- Loyalty is no longer seen as necessary for career advancement and may well even be unhelpful
A far cry from the days when 20 years with the same employer indicated commitment, persistence and character, recruiters will often describe loyalty as being a liability or even a curse for young people when applying for positions. If, for instance, a young person’s résumé shows that they worked in their last position for more than four years, they will often be asked what is wrong with them – ‘why did you stay there so long?’
As a result, Gen Y have adopted the belief that loyalty is not only unnecessary but also potentially unhelpful for career advancement. For young people, a track record of longevity may be seen as indicative that they lack creativity, drive and even flexibility!
When it comes to employee loyalty, it seems that many employers want to have their cake and eat it too. They want their current employees, in whom they have invested training, money and time, to make a commitment to stay for the long term. At the same time though, they look for young staff who can demonstrate flexibility in the variety of positions they have held and rotated through in their relatively short careers. Then, on top of all this, they expect employees to be loyal even though job security is not assured and full-time positions may not even be on offer.
All too often, today’s employers want all the benefits of a part-time, flexible workforce without any of the associated costs. Furthermore, they bemoan the fact that Gen Ys don’t show loyalty and yet they offer no other reason than that they should. While it is true that most young people won’t stay working for one organisation for more than 10 years, it is not a fait accompli that they will move on every 2-3 years. If employers can develop flexible cultures that allow for employees to remain challenged, growing and engaged, this group will stay for long enough to make a return on the employer’s investment. The key message: aim for employee engagement rather than loyalty and longevity and you will likely get the most out of your young staff.