|
|
Hiring and working with the younger generation
Author: | Tuesday November 29, 2005
Bruce Wilkinson is among the favorite speakers for Georgia employers and workers' comp professionals.
Not Your Father's Employee
Generation "Y" Not So
Quick to Accept Orders
Bruce Wilkinson speaks on the workplace and he had an attentive audience during a conference earlier this year when he talked about the new generation of worker.
"I call them Generation Y because they won't do anything unless they know why they have to do it," Wilkinson told the audience at the Georgia Self Insurance Spring meeting. And he wasn't kidding although he drew laughs.
"Kids today talk about rights and privileges and that is going to be your new employee," Wilkinson said. Generation Y are those individuals born after 1976.
(Wilkinson recounted a story involving his own daughter who struck another car ahead of her car when it didn't go through the intersection on a yellow light. Her defense in court? It wasn't her fault because the driver should have run the yellow light. She lost.)
How should companies prepare for the new employee? Improving training and corporate policy should begin with the first line supervisor, Wilkinson said because that is the individual who has direct contact with the worker.
"The first line supervisor is killing us in workers' compensation. They are the ones who get us sued," he emphasized. Because of the lack of good communication there are also more work place injuries.
"It isn't the message that reduces claims and injuries, it is the messenger," Wilkinson said. And then he revealed a stark statistic: "Fifty percent of worker deaths happen in the first 100 days of a new job."
Wilkinson said that supervisors must be properly trained and company policies must be clear and enforceable. "Involve the new employee and they will understand," he advised. "Without demonstrated accountability there is no employee believability," Wiilkinson said.
|
|
