Good news! Those 20-somethings leaving college and applying for jobs at your company aren’t overly entitled slackers after all.
The stereotype exists, but it doesn’t hold water. Not at Ernst & Young, at least.
The New York–based accounting firm, which employs 455 people in Minnesota, says that despite all the ink spilled in recent years over generational differences in the workplace, it could find surprisingly little “hard data” about the ways older and younger employees perceive one another. The question is urgent to Ernst & Young because by 2010, Generation Y will make up more than half of its “client-serving work force.”
So Ernst & Young conducted its own survey a year ago, with the help of a professor of organizational behavior and strategy from the University of North Carolina. Responses from 5,520 North American E&Y employees and partners suggests that the generation gap is more of a hairline crack, the company says.
Carly Kohler, who leads campus recruiting for E&Y’s Minneapolis office, says she’s encouraged by the finding that baby boomers, Gen Xers, and Gen Yers all agreed on the list of things they want from Ernst & Young as an employer: opportunities to learn and grow; flexibility in doing their work; a culture of respect; and a chance to play a leadership role. The differences are matters of degree: 58 percent of boomers, 71 percent of Xers, and 77 percent of Yers put flexibility in their top three. (A corollary: 73 percent of Yers and 70 percent of Xers see boomers as “expecting a dedication to work that interferes with a healthy work-life balance.”)
More communication to do away with unspoken expectations and misperceptions is what Ernst & Young is advising for its managers—though communication itself (and the technology involved) is a potential friction point.
For instance, 45 percent of E&Y’s boomers say they are “comfortable” with technology, but only 9 percent of Gen Y employees perceive such comfort in their boomer bosses. According to Americas Inclusiveness Officer Billie Williamson, who runs E&Y’s diversity and inclusiveness program from corporate headquarters, this partly reflects a skill gap—boomers being slower and more awkward when creating PowerPoint presentations, for instance.
On the flip side, there’s a concern about too much comfort with technology.
“Certain younger people think you can use instant messaging for just about any conversation,” Williamson says. Their boomer and Gen X managers believe that “if you’re dealing with a client, you should go sit down with the client.” Or at least use your phone to talk to clients, instead of texting them—especially if the clients are over, say, 40.
To which we say: Got that, Junior?
