Let's pity-party!

Every time I talk to people who complain about the work ethics of the new generation I tell them to get over it and accept the reality.

I believe it is my tough Russian upbringings ??: I never see much use in complaining about the things we can not change.

Like the mindset of new generations coming to the work floor, the Gen Z’s.

We need them. They think different. They have other values and needs. We still need them.

Let’s stop complaining about it and look how we can deal with it.

But last week I was at a network event hosted by Undutchables Recruitment Agency for their partners and clients to talk about the future of HRM and recruitment. The speaker Gyuri (George) Vergouw in his very interesting presentation used the slide I put into the ?visual of this blog for one of his thesis’s. (excuse the quality of my photography ??).

I was looking at the endless list of demands and wishes of job applicant

-??????????? Growth possibilities

-??????????? Good balance between work and private life

-??????????? Freedom as well as clear KPI

-??????????? Responsibility but without the stress

The list went on and on and on the last picture the interviewer said something in the trend: I am also looking for a job like this.

So I was looking at this humoristic and exaggerated illustration and thought back on all those conversations when I was the professional telling the organisations to deal with it, and it hit me:

It is frustrating!! I am joining the pity party!!!

All those people who devoted years of their lives to building and expanding their companies and businesses, working hard for every success and getting nothing for nothing.

Don’t they deserve to have people working for them who share the same dedication and work mindset???

How exhausting it might feel time after time sitting opposite of someone who gives you and idea that they just do not want to work hard and simple way feel somehow entitled.

Why do they need to accept the norms and believes which do not correspond to their own, as their ideas and views so obviously have been successful all those years?

THEY DO NOT.

If you do not feel that the attitude of the job applicant fits in the culture of your organisation, do not hire this person. Does not matter how “good on paper” they are. Even when you really need somebody for the vacancy.

Do these 3 things first and in this particular order:

1.??????? Investigate the culture you have in your organisation. Is it still as great as you believe it is? Are the work paradigm’s correspond with the modern world? And what can you adjust, if needed, without compromising your true believes???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? I would suggest to hire an outside specialist to do it: “when you are in the picture, you don’t see the frame”, right?

2.??????? Instruct the people who do the actual selection and interviews (the HR managers or recruiters) that the attitude, mindset and work ethics are your preferences. And that is what they need to check first and foremost. If they know your priority you would not have to waste your time at the people confirming the negative believes about the?new generation ??.

3.??????? Be prepared to train for skills. Hiring for attitude and connection to the company culture might mean that the person is not as experienced of professionally qualified for the job as you would like them to be. But that is something which can be improved much easier then a mindset change.

I am sure that if you follow those 3 steps you would not change the new generation, but you will avoid a lot of frustrations, step out of pity party and move a bit closer to winning the war on talent!

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