Getting the Most from Generation X

Top Five To-Dos for GenX Customer Service Staff

5.Give them opportunities to learn
4. Encourage flexibility
3. Communicate openly
2. Provide support structures
1. Make it fun!

1. Encourage mutual respect
2. Let them have a life
3. Let them do their work
4. Be responsive
5. Reward them
6. Walk the talk

Below are some tips and tools for effectively managing the nuances of Xers, and strategies for motivating Xers in the customer service environment.

A Boomer’s Perspective

• Lack work ethic; “slackers”
• Disloyal; uncommitted

• Materialistic
• Only want prestige work

• Seek instant gratification
• Cynical

Generation X is a term coined by Canadian novelist Douglas Coupland to describe his own generation which “defied labels.” This generation comprises those born between 1965 and 1980.

An Xer’s Perspective

• Output driven
• Independent; committed to work – though not necessarily one employer
• Financially savvy and debt burdened
• Want to contribute in a meaningful way
• Adapted to rapid pace
• Pragmatic

Self-reliant

• Accustomed to being alone
• May have had sole parents as divorce rates approached 50%
• May have been latch-key kids in double-income families
• Freedom of time and space
• Don’t think about hours input; but rather output produced
• Resent being micromanaged
• View excessive overtime as a sign of either a cheap boss who won’t resource adequately or inefficient management
• Enjoy informality
• Want to lighten up from the serious world they grew up in
• Take casual day seriously and introduced “business casual”
• Attracted to corporations endorsing a culture of fun at work
• Skeptical
• Grew up with lip service seldom supported by action
• Have endured public disappointment

• Learned not to place faith in others, to be very careful with their loyalty and commitments, for fear of getting burned

• Technology savvy
• Natural affinity for technology
• Kept company with Nintendo and Atari
• Actually know how to program a VCR!

A Sense of Family

• GenX learned to create surrogate families in the absence of their parents
• Emergence of “Urban families”
• Balance
• Distressed by the high price that their parents paid for success: stress and health problems, divorce, drug and alcohol abuse
• Want a life outside of their work
• Casual authority
• Flat organisation structured in lieu of formal hierarchies
• Ability to challenge managers
• Will treat the company president the same as a front-line staff
• Trust
• Want to know “why” and be given the freedom to choose “how”
• Have the ability to work autonomously

•Generation X has always been told it will never do as well as its parents had. I t has inherited serious baggage from the Boomers including high public debt, an overloaded social security system and the burden of financially supporting the largest generation to date.

College graduates exit with a degree and heavy debt loads – only to face a workforce of “McJobs” and the expectation of entering the workforce in minimum wage jobs. The average median price of a home (adjusted for inflation) has increased 78% in the last 30 years making home ownership unrealistic for many Xers. Monthly mortgage payments for young homeowners now consume 40% of their income compared with 14% in the 1950s.

As a result, Generation X needs to be recruited, rewarded and managed differently than predecessors if they are to be a contributing, loyal part of their workforce.

•Effective management of Generation X is a critical business issue as firms struggle with

the war for talent as businesses fight harder to recruit and retain the best and brightest employees in a shrinking labor market , as well as the costs of increasing turnover being experienced across every industry:

• Tangible costs

• Intangible costs
• Recruitment costs
• Hiring costs
• Training costs
• Lower morale leading to decreased productivity
• Reduced efficiency in new workers and those they learn from
• Reputational damage from loss of key personnel
• “Brain drain” of IP and organisation knowledge