You won't hear InsideWork dogging the emerging generation of North American workers.
Are they different from their parents and older siblings? You bet. And mainly for the good.
Most business is no longer structured for career employees — which is fine by new workers because most of them don't want to work 30 years for one company.
Most business is no longer structured for career employees — most new workers don’t want to work 30 years for one company.
These days, the heralded war for talent is more often a series of strategic battles and tactical maneuvers to get the right people in place long enough to design and launch a company, product, service or experience — and then get the right people in place to take it to the next level (not necessarily superior; just next). There's nothing new about this. We've known for a long time that executive turn–around experts are not always suited for a company's long haul.
What we have now is a cohort of workers who were not raised on the assumption of 30–years–and–a–pension. There is a largely negative cast on this, mind you, and there's no question we have to convince new workers that we are sincere about their development and long term well–being by rewarding them fairly. But most don't expect that reward to include the guarantee of a job in perpetuity.
That's a significant shift as we think about recruiting, hiring, training, developing, rewarding, retaining and releasing workers. It is changing the face of corporations and family-owned businesses alike.
There's another difference in young workers that's a bit of a sore point for some people — it's this: Whatever you may have heard, young workers have, on the whole, grown up more responsible than their elder siblings and parents. Whatever may have been true in the past, today, it's adults aged 35-49 we have to be concerned about. You can read all about it in Mike Males' New York Times Op–Ed, This Is Your (Father's) Brain on Drugs.
Here are some bullets worth noting:
- In 2004, 18,249 35–49 year–old Americans died from overdoses of illicit drugs — a 550% per capita increase since 1975. The rate of death from illegal drugs is five times higher for 40–49 year–olds than for teenagers.
- 35–49 year–old were 30 percent more at risk from fatal accidents and suicides than 15–19 year–olds.
- In 2005 more than four million 35–49 year–olds were arrested, including a million for violent crimes, 650,000 for drinking–related offenses and half a million for drug offenses — more than a 200% per capita rise in major index felonies since 1975.
- 21 million 35–49 year–olds admitted binge drinking (five or more drinks in a row on one or more occasions in the previous month). This was double the number of binge drinkers among teenagers and college students combined.
- The number of 35–49 year–olds treated in hospital emergency rooms for overdoses of heroin, cocaine, pharmaceuticals and drugs mixed with alcohol was far higher than among teenagers.
- More than half of all new HIV/AIDS diagnoses were given to middle–agers. A decade ago, that rate was less than one–third.
- Today, the age group most at risk for violent death is 40–49 year–olds.
Of course, your mileage may vary — depending on the individuals with whom you work. And that's the point. You don't hire a generation of workers; you hire individual workers who have certainly been formed along with the others they grew up with but whose perceptions and capabilities and potential follow individual trajectories.
Whether you're considering people near your age or young men and women who could be the offspring of your peers, it's a mistake to make age-based assumptions about individual workers — always and ever.
