Blog Post: Do Millennials Have You Over a Barrel?

Whenever I’m invited inside a company to help them conduct a culture assessment, I always look at the company’s career tab on its website before saying “Yes” or “no thanks.” My purpose: To see how the company brands itself as an employer. Every time candidates look at a company’s career tab, they’re conducting their own preliminary culture assessment. And this is the first, big chance for an employer to put its best foot forward and attract exactly the kind of potential employee who’s a perfect fit for their culture.

During one of these super-preliminary culture investigations, I happened upon a website that would have turned off any high-performing candidate of choice. It looks like a college yearbook (complete with grainy, out-of-focus, scattered pictures with sophomoric captions).  Bottom line: if this company wanted to attract candidates who want to get drunk and play poker all day, they’ve got the perfect careers tab.

“You don’t understand,” said the CEO when I gently asked him if he had seen his careers tab any time recently. “We’ve got Millennials working here, we need to show that this company is a fun place to work.”

And so I said yes. And then I interviewed the Millennials at this company. And guess what? They don’t think a goofball workplace is fun at all. Walking past the same people playing pingpong for hours on-end isn’t fun. Trying to focus on their work with the thock-thock, thock-thock sound of the never-ending game going on in the background isn’t fun. Watching the flashy colors of video games being played in the cubicles next to them isn’t fun. Tolerating bratty behavior of coworkers who demand extra care, over-the-top praise, lenience for sloppy performance or super-flexible attitudes regarding attendance isn’t fun. Beer bashes and margarita machines aren’t fun.

What’s fun for high-performing Millennials is: Knowing that they’re growing in one of the most crucial times of their careers; working in a culture based on respectful treatment; being fairly and equitably rewarded for helping the company achieve its goals; having a direct line of sight between what they do in their cubes and the company’s mission-critical objectives; setting up their 401(k)s and maybe even have a company-sponsored matching plan; having the satisfaction of doing a great job. Now those things are fun!

Granted: There are plenty of slackers out there (across the generational boundaries), and there are plenty of experts who say that Millennials like their young lives just-so. And any employers who want to hire Millennials will have to behave more like butlers than supervisors. Based on the stories I’ve heard, it seems as though my generation has raised a bunch of coast-to-coast borderline personalities. But I’m wondering if that assumption is taking on the proportions of the alligator-in-the-toilet urban myth.

As an employer, it’s your absolute right to establish a reasonable set of behaviors and expectations – consistent with any adult community in which people are expected to deliver what they’ve promised.  You can even have toys in your company (they’re great for mind-refreshing time-outs).  But you shouldn’t have to feel that you must create a workplace version of Animal House just to keep your headcount up.

Fishermen know that the bait they put out attracts the kind of fish that like that kind of bait.  In your efforts to attract Millennials, are you putting out slacker bait or brat bait? If so, you’re attracting slackers and brats. And you’ll have to keep attracting more and more because slackers and brats typically don’t stick around.

Put out the good stuff, keep up your standards, and keep your promises. And you’ll be attracting high performers. Of all ages.