Millennials making their mark in small business
Posted On December 26, 2014
When Bank of America issued its semi-annual report on small business owners this fall, the focus was on generations, specifically Millennials. That may have surprised many of you right off the bat – Millennials are the youngsters, how do they have sufficient trends as small business owners? Remember, they aren’t all fresh out of college anymore (the oldest are in their early thirties), their parents are often Boomers who are ready to retire and pass down the family businesses, and they are very entrepreneurial as a whole. As with everything they do, Millennials are approaching business ownership differently. When reviewing… Read More
Categories: Entrepreneurship, Generation Y / Millennials, Work
Take your parents to work day
Posted On December 23, 2014
In November, LinkedIn hosted its second annual “Bring in your parents day,” a twist on the “take your child to work day” initiative that started back when Gen X was in elementary school. At first glance this may seem like a gimmick, but there is some sound strategy behind it. LinkedIn is achieving a double-win for the generations with this initiative: It helps educate an older generation about their technology-driven business It helps parents become supportive of their children’s career paths – even when they don’t understand them. Millennials, and to some degree Gen X, have a tendency to have… Read More
Categories: Blog, Generation X, Generation Y / Millennials, Workplace
Millennials keep us guessing at the polls
Posted On December 18, 2014
Harvard shocked the pollsters a week before the election with its report that Millennials favored the GOP. And then the Millennials went out and voted Democrat—at least 55% of them did. While still a majority, that represents a significant shift from 2012. Are Millennials becoming more conservative as they age? And if so, is that consistent across fiscal and social positions? One election is too soon to tell. I will admit the poll results surprised me. Millennials have always had a very strong sense of social justice, which has greatly influenced their politics. On the other hand, from a financial… Read More
Categories: Generation Y / Millennials, Voting Behavior
Creative benefits: An example that resonates
Posted On October 14, 2014
I’m on the road at least one night per week for 30+ weeks a year talking to companies about how to attract, engage and retain the next generation of talent. Whether in a small group workshop or to a keynote audience of multiple hundreds, we are often discussing creative ways to look beyond pure dollars and identify other benefits that make employees feel appreciated and understood. The examples I share and ideas that come from the audience frequently focus on achieving the elusive work-life balance. I’ve heard a lot, but I found this example recently on slate.com and it is… Read More
Categories: Generation Y / Millennials, Workplace
Nothing like those Millennials? Maybe, maybe not.
Posted On October 2, 2014
Here’s a fun one. The fine folks at the Pew Research Center have come up with their own Buzzfeed-worthy quiz. How Millennial are you? It’s a simple as it sounds – click through 15 easy questions about your habits, actions and beliefs, and find out how Millennial you are on a scale of 1 to 100. Millennials actually score at 73, with Boomers hovering near 11 and Xers at 33. Your responses are compared to those of the individuals who participated in a 2010 study on Millennial behaviors. It’s the Pew Center, so I give it some clout, but it… Read More
Categories: Generation Y / Millennials
Is an ethics course in order for the Millennials?
Posted On September 25, 2014
The workplace cliché of the boss who makes the young staffers do all the work and then takes all the credit may be meeting its match. A new study by marketing firm DDB found that 27 percent of Millennials had taken credit for someone else’s work. And that’s just the ones who would own it. Comparatively, 15 percent and 5 percent of Xers and Boomers, respectively, admitted to the same. So what’s driving this seeming underhanded behavior? And how does this reconcile with a group that we’ve called social and altruistic? According to the survey authors, it’s the old dollar… Read More
Categories: Generation Y / Millennials, Work, Workplace
Retirement across the generations: Outlooks and warnings
Posted On September 11, 2014
It’s generally accepted that individuals will need retirement savings of roughly 16 times their pre-retirement salary, and that social security will cover only 4 times salary at most. It is also generally understood that most individuals cannot count on employer-defined plans to fund that missing 11 times salary – but how much is very different by generation. An Aon Hewitt study reported in Benefits Quarterly predicts that Boomers will be responsible for generating roughly 6.3 times salary out of their own savings while Millennials are faced with a daunting 10.5 times salary gap. The upside, of course, is that Millennials… Read More
Categories: Financial Services, Generation Y / Millennials, Retirement, Workplace
Investing for the next generation
Posted On August 21, 2014
Financial advisors are struggling to find the best way to connect with young investors. According to Forbes, younger generations are taking matters into their own hands – creating businesses that adapt to the Millennial way of thinking. These savvy entrepreneurs are taking the principles of DIY investing and marrying them to financial advisory to recreate the investment experience so that it mirrors the values of the younger generations. Wealthfront, an investment company highlighted in the piece, offers a “refer-a-friend” bonus that comes in the form of an increased cap on the assets managed at no cost. While older generations would… Read More
Categories: Financial Services, Generation Y / Millennials
Texting while driving…golf carts
Posted On August 14, 2014
Golf courses have a problem. Young professionals simply aren’t hitting the links with the same regularity as their Xer and Boomer predecessors. The New York Times reports that in 2013, only 22 percent of travelers under 33 played golf when they stayed at a resort, compared with 42 percent of baby boomers. And resorts are working hard to determine the best way to attract them. From the article: Resorts are … making changes that would have been unthinkable even a decade ago, adding speakers to golf carts and Wi-Fi access on the course, building high-tech training centers and miniature golf… Read More
Categories: Entrepreneurship, Generation Y / Millennials, Product Design
Millennials waxing nostalgic
Posted On August 7, 2014
A friend told me about the new Miranda Lambert tune and it made me chuckle. At the ripe old age of 30 years, Lambert is a Millennial. Yet here she is singing about the good old days of hard work and paying your dues. And I did my homework with good ol’ Google – Lambert isn’t just singing a lyric written by a Nashville old-timer; she wrote it. The chorus is especially amusing for someone who was only 15 when the Internet went mainstream: Hey, whatever happened to waitin’ your turn Doing it all by hand, ‘Cause when everything is… Read More
Categories: Generation Y / Millennials, Workplace