Author: Min Tang

In part 1, we covered what it takes to understand millennials, as well as their impacts, and we discussed what management vs. leadership means, especially in a world of remote work. In pt. II we discuss adaptation, education, purpose and corporate social responsibility.

Be Adaptive: Never Stop Educating Yourself

No matter what field you’re in, Millennials and technological change are infiltrating your operations. What’s more, the rate of change that we’re seeing now will only grow as time goes on, meaning that you need to learn how to get ahead of the curve and stay ahead.

This means that old, long and drawn-out campaigns relying on rigid processes and technology won’t work anymore — or at least that they won’t work for long. The lack of fluid structure and adaptive decision making is exactly why Blockbuster failed as a company where Netflix succeeded. Learning to predict these differences means committing to continued acquisition of knowledge.

To accomplish this goal, some people peruse blogs and use the internet to source information on new technology and management. Others prefer a more formal course of education, such as a postgraduate degree related to business. In fact, learning company Context reports that the MBA represents 25 percent of all graduate degrees awarded, with permutations like the executive MBA (EMBA) program, designed for business professionals who are already mid-career and can be earned while working full time.

Of course, not everybody is sure whether or not the MBA is worth it for them. Arizona State University’s online resources number one question for those questioning the MBA is “do you aspire to be a leader?” This is because 86 percent of post-graduate recipients reported that the MBA did indeed prepare them for leadership roles.

Whatever your preferred method of knowledge acquisition, be sure that you’re using that knowledge in practice as adaptively as possible. All of that said, there’s one more big thing that needs to be understood about modern employees.

Work With Purpose & Corporate Social Responsibility

Millennials have tightened the relationship between purpose and work, and have even begun to change the face of ethics in businesses, with corporate leaders such as Suburu, Honda, Marks and Spencer, and Nestle investing in corporate social responsibility (CSR) measures. Each of the aforementioned have taken steps to promote initiatives centered around ethics and sustainability, from decreased landfill waste, to cutting carbon emissions and reducing water use.

It’s not just consumers who are demanding that companies promote better CSR, but those companies’ employees themselves. Modern workers want to care about the work that they do, and knowing that the company they work for is bettering the world or society in someway can provide that meaning. Here are four methods companies can utilize to boost CSR efforts.

1. Give back to a cause that your employees and customers care about. Research causes in the community your company serves or in which it is based.
2. Set up volunteer programs hosted by your company. This will give employees a feeling of connection to both your organization and they community they’re making a difference in.
3. Embrace cause-marketing. Partner with a nonprofit and donate sales or labor to better their cause.
4. Get feedback from the board. Getting a board of directors on your side means you might get a better CSR budget, or even that the board members themselves get hands-on with the initiatives.

The bottom line is that companies who exist solely to turn a profit won’t exist for much longer, because employees will flock to organizations that take the extra effort to embrace CSR.

While millennials certainly didn’t bring about the digital and societal catalysts that have forever changed the workplace, they are inextricably tied to them via their values and skills — and they’re not the last generation that is going to usher dynamic transformation in the world of work either. Managers who are learning to lead in this millennial-dominated world should simultaneously be gearing up for the next generation of workers that will soon be pouring into conference rooms and board meetings around the globe. The only way to stay on top in this world is to think ahead and be adaptable. Whether or not you think you’re getting the employees you need, it’s your responsibility to be the manager and leader that they deserve. Perhaps someday they’ll follow your example and lead new generations of work down the road.

The workplace has changed. Millennials are now proportionally the most represented generation in the office, bumping shoulders with Gen Xers and baby boomers both in employee and leadership positions. With these millennials came vast technological change and the quirks of a growing, intergenerational workforce.

As such, the skills it took to manage an office 10 years ago are completely different than those required of modern managers, whose offices, in some cases, now exist as hybrid or even fully virtual spaces, with employees that range in digital competency from expert to amateur, and who they may never have actually met in person. This is becoming the norm, whether modern managers and leaders like it or not.

So how does one go about mastering modern management in the millennial workplace? While not definitive, here are a couple of tips that can help new cats and old dogs alike get a grip on contemporary leadership.

Understanding Millennials and Their Impact

Millennials, as a group, have received a lot of criticism in the past couple of years, and it’s only recently that you’ll find positive mentions of their generation and the impacts they have on society. While the former isn’t necessarily deserved, the latter absolutely is; millennials bring unique values and experiences to the workforce that are progressive and civically minded. They are the future of — well, everything! It’s only right that we recognize what value this generation presents to both past and future generations. The experts at Pepperdine University have presented these statistics on the millennial workforce, including information on what they value, what they want from an employer, and positive traits that they bring to the global workforce:

• There are 79.8 million millennials in the U.S. By 2025 millennials will represent nearly 75 percent of the workforce.
• 72 percent of Millennials want to be their own boss — however, if they do have a boss, 79 percent would want that boss to act as a mentor.
• 88 percent prefer a collaborative work culture rather than a competitive one.
• Bosses are the number one reason that millennials leave their job. Furthermore, three out of four millennials don’t know where they stand with regard to performance — nearly 90 percent would feel more confident if they had regular check-ins with their bosses.
• 40 percent of millennials stated that their ability to excel in their job is contingent upon deriving meaning from their work.
• Tech-savvy, socially conscious, civic-minded, progressive, diverse, and compassionate are all accurate descriptors for the millennial generation.

What these stats show us is that the millennial-influenced workplaces generally value meaningful work, autonomy, and good relationships with their bosses. This is where it helps to know the difference between management and leadership. Mix that with their inherent knack for technology, and you have a potentially sticky situation concerning remote management and digital leadership.

Remote Management and Digital Leadership

Though it may seem a new concept, the term “telecommuting” was actually coined in 1973 by former NASA engineer Jack Nilles — who was, at the time, the Director of Interdisciplinary Research at the University of Southern California. After his research uncovered the numerous benefits inherent in this mode of work, he projected the concept would proliferate in the public sphere in the 1990s. While it took a little bit longer, technology has caught up to the hype, and now nearly 3 percent of the U.S. workforce (3.7 million employees) works remotely at least half the time, according to recent survey results.

Managers would do well to make sure that, even though the office may be virtual, office hours and protocol are still respected. Communication may be written more often than not, facilitated by apps like Slack or Skype — but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t videoconference with employees regularly just to maintain a personable presence in their working lives.

To that end, what modern employees are looking for in their bosses has evolved over the years. They’re looking for more than to just be managed; they’re looking for leaders. Rutgers Online points to three primary differences that drive this dichotomy:

1. Empathy. Employees want to build relationships with their bosses, but they can’t do that unless that leader is empathetic. Where managers might be firm and unyielding, good leaders empathize and work with employees instead of against them.
2. Open communication. “Leaders need to be willing to communicate about anything and everything when it is necessary to support their team or followers,” write the experts at Rutgers. “They should be able to share criticism in constructive ways. They must be willing to admit their mistakes. They need to be able to ask for help or for more effort. And they must be willing to say the hard things in a helpful and controlled way in order to get the correct message across.”
3. Motivation and Encouragement. Similar to having empathy, managers need to learn how to motivate each employee individually, as well as how to motivate his or her team as a whole.

Learning to manage effectively in today’s society might mean navigating new technology and leadership styles that seem foreign, even if underlying principles of management are practically the same. This is why it’s imperative that modern managers and leaders be adaptive and never stop educating themselves.