Summary
The article titled “Mentoring Millenials” by Jeanne C. Meister and Karie Willyerd focuses on one of the most important and critical perspectives of the emerging workforce in contemporary times. They highlight the major shift in the proportionality of the global workforce that is soon going to constitute at least millennials as 50% of the total workforce. The millennials are the people born between 1977 to 1997. This will be a major shift, and the managers need to prepare well for mentoring, managing and getting the best out of millennials, as they are quite different from previous generations. According to the authors, millennials have the mindset that work is a key part of their lives that must be done in the most satisfactory and fulfilling manner. They do not seek to focus on work-life balance like baby boomers. Instead, they emphasize working up to the level of satisfaction in a highly efficient manner. In simple words, it can be stated that they are overachievers and can surpass their leaders and managers in their performance and efficiency.
In order to better control, manage and mentor millennials, it is important that they must be mentored very strategically. For this purpose, the authors have recommended three methods of mentoring millennials. The first method is Reverse Mentoring. In this approach, the line employees are responsible for mentoring the new workforce instead of the managers. Group Mentoring is the second approach, according to which the senior manager can promote peer-to-peer learning and mentoring. The third approach is Anonymous Mentoring, which makes use of psychological tests, background reviews, etc., to engage with the more likely employees.
Synopsis
However, there are opponents of this idea as well. According to the opponents, millennials should not be categorized as a different generation with different abilities. Nor should it create a panic amongst the managers. Instead, the managers should make sure that they are managing, controlling and mentoring the millennials in the same way as Gen X or Baby Boomers. This is possible because human tendencies and psychologies do not change over time.
However, this concept needs to be overruled because of the different circumstances and contexts in which Millennials have grown. Millennials have grown up with technology and speedy communication mediums that made them community-oriented and imaginative. In the computerized world, they are all around associated and creative. Those are the qualities that can be changed into significant business openings. Be that as it may, Millennials – like every other person – have stuff. Some of their shortcomings won’t be so alluring in the workplace. On the off chance that the managers think that it’s testing to work with and to administer Gen Y representatives, the managers are not the minority in the managers’ reality. In this way, we set up a few hints together to enable the managers to overcome the difficulties and make the best out of their Gen Y workers.
Furthermore, managers also need to understand that millennials’ initial lives are made up of fast encounters. They, at that point, go to the workplace expecting pretty much the same. Components that are out of Millennials’ control can influence the speed of completing things. For instance, when an associate works from home with a moderate web association, he or she won’t react to a demand as fast as a Millennial anticipates.
It frequently appears that Millennials are excessively anxious, making it impossible to think about these present reality things. Many managers whine about the “urgency” state of mind among Millennials. Millennials themselves concede that they are restless. For whatever length of time that the managers feel for its foundation, the managers can, however, discover approaches to limit the negative effect. We will discuss this somewhat additionally down.
Millennials are generally thought of as having a commitment issue. When HR managers discuss millennials, it frequently goes this way: They don’t remain in an organization for longer than a couple of years. They change employment as a general rule. They are not steadfast. The managers get them installed. The managers burn through two months, preparing them for the aptitudes the managers need. They abandon the managers in three months. The managers need to begin the agonizing enrolling process once more. The managers dither when the managers see more applications from Millennials. The managers don’t know whether they should change it once more.
Without a doubt, Gen Y’s shortcomings pose difficulties to their bosses. To give some examples, Millennials’ limited capacity to focus influences the capacity to accomplish the organization’s common objectives. Their absence of commitment makes the recruitment an apparently ceaseless circle. Plus, their restlessness and solid feelings of entitlement cause resentment among partners from more seasoned generations.
In any case, the managers can see from over that every one of their shortcomings originates from their exclusive standards and their separated disposition towards the built-up path in the workplace. Thus, the managers can roll out improvements in the working environment and in their own management style to live up to their desires and match their qualities. Obviously, it is just an off-chance that managers need to connect with their millennials and accept the open doors they bring.
However, its supporters do not believe the fallacy in the above criticism. With the passage of time, the focus on skills and multiple competencies has emerged. This focus was not present in Baby Boomers and Gen X workers since they heavily relied on one skill and often lacked critical thinking competencies. In such a scenario, the Millennials are more likely to have an increased level of collective intelligence that makes them over-smart and overachievers. Therefore, they need to be controlled and mentored accordingly.
