Generation Y is after more than a salary
Generation Y is after more than a salary

If you ask your younger workers to get you coffee, get ready to swallow the dregs.

Today's Generation Yers — ages 28 and younger — will leave after 18 months, if their jobs aren't engaging, don't allow time for life outside work or have flat learning curves. And that includes making or fetching coffee.

That was the message of Penelope Trunk, syndicated career columnist and author, took to the Oklahoma Bankers Association meeting Monday at the Renaissance Tulsa Hotel. The two-day event drew more than 300 bankers statewide, from Laverne, Beaver, Seiling, Fairfax, Ardmore and elsewhere.

Trunk, 41, said she had an awakening when she asked a Gen Yer in her Madison, Wis.-based company to send a fax.

"Do I look like I'm 40?” replied her employee, who instead scanned and e-mailed a postscript document file (PDF).

"The best way to work with them is to join them,” Trunk said.

Gen Yers have been playing two video games at the same time since they were 5, and instant messaging and texting since the fifth grade, so doing things the digital way comes naturally, she said.

According to USA Today, the younger generation comprises 21 percent of today's workers. Meanwhile Generation X, starting with people born in 1964, holds much of the same values and includes 30 percent of the workforce.

Roger Beverage, president and chief executive officer of the OBA, solicited Trunk as keynote speaker after hearing her address the national conference in San Diego.

"I realized we're not doing enough to prepare the next generation for this industry,” Beverage said.

To retain young professionals, "ask them where they want to go and show them how you're helping them get there,” Trunk said. She also offered the following seven tips:

•Work is not about the money. Young people watched their baby boomer parents work hard and get laid off, Trunk said. "Consequently, they really do believe life is about relationships,” she said. "It's insulting if you offer to pay them to work the weekend.”

•Job hopping is good. Workers in their 20s build their skills faster, network faster and are more engaged. Sixty percent of Gen Yers live with their parents, studies show. "They'd rather sit in their parents' basements versus take terrible jobs,” Trunk said.

•Gaps in the resume are good. Breaks allow soul searching, which makes for more engaged employees.

•Paying dues is outdated. There are no longer career ladders, Trunk said, "so you can't expect someone to get you coffee, because they may not get to the next rung.”

•Promotions are outdated. A 5 percent raise is purely symbolic, especially after taxes. Instead, workers should demand training for job security and to fulfill their own goals, Trunk said.

•Loyalty still matters. Gen Yers — who played soccer even if they were terrible, had tutoring for SAT college entrance tests and family help for book reports — love their parents and expect all adults to be mentors.

•Office politics is about being nice. Gen Yers expect people to be collaborative. They went to prom and did book reports as a team and, as workers, tend to quit in teams — especially in the restaurant industry.

Trunk's speech resonated with Marty Hansen, president and chief executive of First State Bank in Fairfax. The fact that Gen Yers leave on average after 18 months was right on, Hansen said.

"They got to the point they couldn't grow anymore and moved on,” Hansen said of his experience with young employees.

Now, Hansen realizes he has to challenge young workers more, he said.

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