The Millennial Generation

As students, freshmen come into high school knowing that they are hated by every upperclassmen in the school, with the exception of some friends and possibly family. The freshmen don’t understand why they are disliked, and most of the upperclassmen can’t tell you why they despise the freshmen, except for some unproved responses such as: “They’re annoying”, or “They’re so immature”. This sequence occurs every year. As the freshmen turn into upperclassmen, they too develop a hate for the incoming freshmen. This relationship is common on a larger scale as well; older generations view the younger generations as annoying, dumb, and immature. Dealing with three generations today, we have the omniscient Baby Boomers (1946-1964), impious

This case is about hiring and employee retention processes centered on new college graduates that, instead of offering ideal and permanent career pathways to these recent graduates and new employees, turn out to become for them a platform or a launch-pad from which they hunt for their dream careers after a couple of years. Despite the costs associated with and the high turnover trend caused by it, this practice continued over time and became increasingly unsustainable, with a rise in job insecurity, and subsequently a reduction in job satisfaction and organizational commitment that come with it. Initiatives from human resource management and the many changes in strategy attempted by senior management

Millenials is the name given to the generation who reached adulthood around the turn of the 21st century, they were born during 1975 and 1995 which was the Cold War era. The millennial is given the nickname as the television or digital age. The popularity of television boomed in their time was a result of the Space Race and America's curiosity of what would have been called the impossible. In the 1940's there was only a few tv's but in the-the 1970's the amount of tv's surged to four million plus. The Millenials grew up in a society when the social norm was for an individual to watch tv five hours a day. The United States victory was largely contributed to great communication technology. An example was in the Civil War when President Lincoln would command the military thousands of miles away. What strengthened the Millenial ideology is communication and getting full

The makeup of today’s workforce is changing, it is estimated that the “millennial” generation will outgrow the Baby Boomers to be the largest living generation in the United States. This poses some unique opportunities and challenges for private, public, and nonprofit sectors. For the public sector they will need to understand how this generation wants to engage in the workforce. For the continued success of the San Francisco Controllers office, I recommend to develop strategies for both recruitment and succession planning for this new generation. Understanding current organizational gaps, millennial motivations in the workforce, and capitalizing on this generation’s desire for skill and leadership development, will ensure that the Controller’s Office will be able to carry out their goals for the future.

Retaining employees is one way the turnover rate can decrease, Branham (2000), focuses on retaining valuable employees by incorporating four key elements. The first key elements is, “be a company that people want to work for”. There are many companies that have been labeled as, “employers of choice”. These employers all have something in common, which is how they value their employers (Branham, 2000). They treat their employees with respect and like family. With being an “employer of choice,” people are the most valuable asset; not just customers but employees too. Many companies go above and beyond for their customers, but not for their employees, yet they wonder why they are losing valuable talent.

Many employers are challenged with handling the millennial due to the lack of proper understanding of this generation since there is plenty of myths, propagated through anecdotes and assumptions. However the separation of the myths and the facts is important for an organization so as

Upon reflecting on the three main generations that comprise the workplace today, a few differences emerge. “Baby Boomers” grew up in a time when movements were prominent, the Vietnam War occurred, key figures were assassinated, the Watergate Scandal occurred, and television was introduced (Twenge et al., 2010; Schullery, 2013). Overall, “Baby Boomers” seem to exhibit a distrust of authority, value hard work, and want to enjoy their achievements (Robbins & Judge, 2015; Twenge et al., 2010). As such, they are results driven and give their utmost effort (Robbins & Judge, 2015). “Generation X” grew up in a time of computers, divorce, two career parents, MTV, and economic uncertainty (Twenge et al., 2010; Robbins & Judge, 2015). For the most part, they seem to exhibit the workplace behaviors of independence and a lack of commitment to employers (Twenge et al., 2010). They value a balance between work and life and place more focus on extrinsic rewards such as monetary compensation (Twenge et al., 2010). “Millennials” grew up in prosperous times with technology dominating the era and over-protective parents (Robbins & Judge, 2015; Schullery, 2013). Generally, they seem to place a greater value on employee benefits, leisure time, teamwork, and open communication (Society of Human Resource Management, 2004; Twenge, 2010; Myers & Sadaghiani, 2010). In addition, they have also been given the labels of “self-centered” and “entitled” (Myers & Sadaghiani, 2010).

There are many challenges facing managers and leaders in current workforce. The variety of cultures, races and generations in today’s environment is making work harder. “Managing will also get even more difficult because of globalization, multi-generational workforce, dependency on technology, unethical behaviors and practices.” (Kaifi,2013,pg.217). In this paper I will talk about the three generations that we have had over the past sixty years – the Baby Boomer Generation, Generation X and the current Generation Y, known as Millennials. This rich mix of generations in the workforce can be attributed primarily to labor shortages experienced in many industries and the rising average age of retirement.

Every generation is separated into groups. Within a certain set of time, a significant amount of information can develop or change. A few years after the Great Depression the generation of Baby Boomers began ranging from 1946 to 1964. There were numerous inventions and improvements such as: cars, cell phones, and computers. Through the years 1996 to 2010 Generation Z stepped into the spotlight. Even though, start to finish there is a 64-year difference between the oldest and youngest of these two generations, there is something that holds them together, while at the same time makes them each unique. Between the generations there are the differences including lifestyles, forms of technology, how their health was taken care of, and which issues were more prominent yet having some similarities.

Where will they come from? That is a question that is facing organizations and businesses in the United States as they ponder where the next wave of workers will emerge. Organizational recruitment and retention strategies have been challenged to find replacements for a generation of employees on the brink of retirement. This generation, the Baby Boomers, is a generation numbering 76 to 78 million people (Stendardi, 2005), a staggering number when contrasted with a 2009 Department of Labor figure of an employed civilian workforce of 140 million workers. The Boomers’ imminent retirement, sometimes referred to as the “ demographic tidal wave,” will challenge organizations and Human Resource departments to develop programs and

For the most part, attracting and retaining employees in today’s market is one of the biggest challenges that are faced by Human Resources. In today’s society, retaining employees is rather difficult as various employees are known to jump from job to job, almost always in search for more benefits or for their personal dream. Whatever the reason be, high turnover rates can be very expensive to employers as training and hiring one employee and then training and hiring a new employee requires time and money. According to Chron.com, it has been found that “employee replacement costs can reach as high as 50 to 60 percent of an employee’s annual salary.” As this is a one-time transaction, employees that are retained only “charge” the company once and so it is allowing more work for the dollar when the employee stays with the company for a longer time period. Companies that have high turn-over rates spend more money on employees which affects the bottom line of the company, this determines the state on how fast or a matter of if the company will use its money to expand.

Through our investigation, we have discovered the employee turnover rate at APPSmart Inc. is immensely high in comparison to the industry average. This is an important issue that must be quickly addressed. Turnover is the termination of an individual’s employment with an organization and can be permanent, temporary, voluntary or involuntary (Dessler & Chhinzer, 2016). High turnover rate at APPSmart can be due to the lack of compensation and benefits provided to the employees. Employees working in the production plant are paid minimum wage and do not necessarily receive compensation for overtime work. Therefore, if these employees are presented with a better offer, they will likely consider leaving. Turnover can increase recruiting and training

“The number of employees over the age of 55 has increased by 30 percent; however, the number of 25- to 54-year-olds has only increased by 1 percent” (Claire, 2009). In 2008 the eldest of the 77 million baby-boomers turned 62. Estimates are that by the end of the decade about 40 percent of the work force will be eligible to retire. As people begin to reach the age of retirement there may be not be enough new employees to fill the gap (Clare, 2009). Companies need to find ways to attract Boomers and Millennials. Companies that want to attract Boomers and Millennials need to be creative in their culture, HR policies and work environments.

Employees, especially Millennial or Generation Y workers, want to stay in a company that provides a range of professional opportunities and career paths where they can grow their careers ("Internal Mobility Benefits Employees and the Business | RPO Intelligence Blog," n.d.), lack of career advancement opportunities is one of the main reasons that desirable, high-potential employees leave a business. According to a recent LinkedIn “exit survey” of 7,350 members across five countries, the top reason workers

A hole is left the absence of an employee either by termination or quitting by choice (Kaur & Vijay, 2016). High employee turnover leaves more holes the employer has to address and becomes expensive (Likhitkar & Verma, 2015). An average cost of $3, 328 to search, hire and train the replacement for a $10 per hour employee (Sadler & Evans, 2016). A median turnover rate of 67% for part-time employees is roughly half of the cost if not more (Oviedo-Garcia & Vega-Vazquez, 2014). Most companies are adopting the impersonalizing contact, online application process, and pre-employment skills test, while ignoring the impact of high turnover rates (Nguyen, Nica, & Bose, 2015). Research suggests an employee’s lack of job satisfaction in part due to a shortage of incentives for front line managers (Chang & Zhang, 2016). Additionally, Millennial employees look for challenging environments, which a contribution or suggestion is valued (Cravens, Oliver, & Oishi, 2015).