Fewer Family Businesses to be Passed to Next Generation
Posted On January 31, 2017
I’ve written in this space before about the need for succession planning. The long-term viability of your business may depend on it – particularly for family-owned business that want to maintain family control. But PwC’s annual family business survey found a decreasing number of owners who planned to keep their businesses in the family. Of the survey respondents who foresaw a change in ownership within the next five years – admittedly a small number at 17 percent – only 52 percent were planning to pass their companies down to another family member. That’s the lowest number since 2010, according to… Read More
Categories: Baby Boomers, Entrepreneurship, Generation X, Succession Planning, Work
Effective, Meaningful, Interpersonal Feedback – Not the Hendrix kind
Posted On January 17, 2017
Want to keep your millennial employees happy? The first step might be one that’s rather easy to accomplish, but also easy to overlook: Talk to them. Feedback is important – and not just formal annual or biannual reviews. Not just a cold calculation of production metrics. Not a written evaluation for their file. And for goodness sake, not a challenge to justify their existence like the Bobs in Office Space — “What would you say you do here?” About 40 percent of millennial respondents in a recent survey conducted by Clutch, a Washington D.C.-based B2B research firm, did not find… Read More
Categories: Generation Y / Millennials, Workplace
Recruit through Philanthropy – The Millennials will take Note
Posted On January 6, 2017
Looking to hire a few good millennials? One way to attract them may be by giving them a chance to give back. Many millennials have a philanthropic bent – finding ways to improve the world is important to them. A report from the Case Foundation and Achieve, a research and marketing agency for causes, found that many want and expect their employers to provide tangible outlets for their charitable urges in their professional lives. And that doesn’t mean just signing over a few dollars a month to the United Way. One industry that’s taking this data to heart is the… Read More
Categories: Generation Y / Millennials
Enough Already: The Celebrity Deaths of 2016 and Gen X Mortality
Posted On January 2, 2017
Carrie Fisher. Prince. David Bowie. Muhammad Ali. Florence Henderson. They were all icons of a Generation Xer’s youth. The female lead in the biggest movie franchise ever. Two musicians who left lasting legacies in rock and pop. The greatest boxer in the world. The TV mom after which so many other TV moms were modeled. They all died in 2016, along with many other familiar names to most Gen-Xers – George Michael, John Glenn, Gene Wilder, Alan Rickman, Alan Thicke, Pat Summitt, Gary Shandling, Glenn Frey. The sudden deaths of Michael and Fisher within the last month – and the subsequent… Read More
Categories: Generation X
Another dose of adversity, please, for the kids’ sake.
Posted On December 23, 2016
Are millennials suffering from a lack of adversity? The question was posed in a headline on AL.com this week, introducing a column by Eddie Vines, a Jefferson County, Alabama district judge whose guest editorial on the website was basically a column-length version of “Get off my lawn.” Most millennials haven’t known want, Vines says, on the level of his parents in the Great Depression. Most millennials have never had to sacrifice like the Greatest Generation. The sky is blue. Water is wet. Every generation thinks the one below it is soft. Fathers who lived through the Revolutionary War probably thought… Read More
Categories: Generation Y / Millennials, Parenting
Working From Home – It’s For Everybody, Right?
Posted On December 13, 2016
Who among us wouldn’t love to work from home? No unwelcome interruptions from overly chatty co-workers. Unlimited refills from our own refrigerator and snacks from our own cupboard. Background music of our own choosing and as loud as we like. And, perhaps best of all, no dress requirements. While working from home may seem like a millennial invention, its rise is really just a product of the technology that’s been developed during the millennials’ entrance into the workplace. With the internet, remote messaging systems and cloud technology, there’s often little reason for all of a company’s employees to be under… Read More
Categories: Generation Y / Millennials, Workplace
Are Millennials More Entrepreneurial? One Question. Different Data. Different Answers.
Posted On November 22, 2016
It’s interesting how you can come to different conclusions about an issue simply by which set of statistics you choose to examine. Take, for instance, the issue of millennial entrepreneurship. A Fortune article in February hailed the generation as “millennipreneurs,” noting that millennials had launched about twice as many businesses as Baby Boomers at the same age. Citing the 2016 BNP Paribas Global Entrepreneur Report, Fortune noted that millennial entrepreneurs were also starting earlier, starting their first businesses at age 27, as compared to 35 for Boomer entrepreneurs. But Forbes contributor Natalie Bacon cites research from the Kauffman Foundation, which… Read More
Categories: Entrepreneurship, Generation Y / Millennials, Work
4 Trends of the Millennial Home Buyer
Posted On November 10, 2016
(Today’s post courtesy of Zillow.com who offered to share some of their home buying trends research.) By Jennifer Riner Young, urban professionals have a reputation for renting in the city. While this holds true for many, you might be surprised to learn that half of the current home buying market is under 36-years-old. Millennial home buyers between 18- to 34-years-old currently make up the biggest piece of the residential real estate pie at 42 percent. In the newly released Zillow Group Report on Consumer Housing Trends, the real estate experts and economists dove into the demographics of home buyers. Here’s… Read More
Categories: Generation Y / Millennials, Home Ownership
Boomer’s Influence on Politics Coming to an End? And Will the Younger Gens go the Other Way?
Posted On November 2, 2016
Millennials have made their voices heard in this year’s contentious presidential election, mostly through the vociferous support for Democratic primary candidate Bernie Sanders – a phenomenon I explored in a blog back in May. After Sanders fell in the primary to Hillary Clinton, their level of support for the Democratic nominee may play a role in whether she or Republican Donald Trump wins the presidency. Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank recently cited polls showing Trump leading slightly among Baby Boomers while trailing among Gen-Xers and millennials. Milbank offered the opinion that Baby Boomers’ preference for the combative Trump is proof… Read More
Categories: Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y / Millennials, Voting Behavior
Retirement With Gobs of Debt – A Boomer Dilemma
Posted On October 4, 2016
How much debt are you carrying? Most of us have some credit card debt. Many of us also have mortgages or student loans. Some of us are also carrying debt from home equity loans or lines of credit. As we get older, the volume of debt we’re carrying becomes an exponentially greater threat to our retirement – particularly with the demise of pensions and private-sector retiree healthcare benefits. One might think Baby Boomers would be past some of this, having gone to college before tuition skyrocketed and having had plenty of time to pay off their homes. But while they… Read More
Categories: Baby Boomers, Home Ownership, Retirement