Recruiting, Managing, and Retaining Millennials

The HR world has been abuzz with discussion about the generational dynamic between the aging baby boomers and the Web 2.0 world of Millennials. This five-part series is designed to give the rest of us some perspective.

A “Millennial,” demographically speaking, is a person born after 1980. They are the youngest members of today’s workforce. Experts estimate that by 2010, Millennials will outnumber both Baby Boomers and Gen Xers. Millennials (a/k/a “Gen Y”) are our society’s “digital residents,” which means that they have enjoyed the luxuries of digital technology their entire lives, including the massive world of video games. Their digital residence has given their generation characteristics employers never seen before.

Some sociologists believe that as a result of their residence in the digital world (think instant messaging, Facebook, and MySpace), Millennials are significantly peer-oriented and constantly seek instant gratification. The bottom line: Millennials don’t necessarily buy into the idea that in order to succeed at work, you need to get in early, stay late, and consistently work hard.

These characteristics can make it difficult for employers to adapt how and who they recruit, and how they manage and retain their new human resource. In short, Millennials are changing the way employers do the business of, well, employment. The next three installments provide tips on how your organization can tap into Millennial talent.

For more insight on Millennials and how they fit into your organization, consider the text “Millennials Incorporated” by Lisa Orrell. Ms. Orrell hosts the blog “Lisa’s Generation Relations Blog.” And, on May 20, 2008, HRHero.com will host Dr. Diane Gayeski, contributor to the Wall Street Journal and consultant to some of America’s top employers, in an audio conference titled “Are you ready for the Millennials? What HR Needs to Know to Recruit and Manage the IPod Workers.”

The focus of the next post in this series is Recruiting Strategies for the Next Generation.

Delaware employers are immune from being sued for providing (honest) information to a reference request. The State law gives employers extra incentive to actually respond to such checks with more than name, rank, and serial number. And that’s a good thing.

Reference checks are an essential hiring tool for most employers. Hiring managers often complain about the lack of disclosure they receive in response to their reference requests. And it’s estimated that up to one-third of all resumes contain inaccurate information. One British organization has found their own solution to often-restricted access to information about job applicants.

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In Britain, an employer association has taken some creative steps to address what most be some serious headaches in the reference-check system. The organization is creating a National Staff Dismissal Register that will consist of an encrypted list of high-risk employees, identifying employees who were discharged for dishonesty or for damaging their employer’s property, for example.

Member companies will be able to search the list by name, address, birth date, previous employer and national insurance number. The list is expected to be usable by the end of the month.

Employee and human rights organization advocates worry that employees may find themselves unable to obtain work because, unbeknownst to them, they are on the list because of false accusations or errors, with no way to be certain and no appeal. Employers, on the other hand, look forward to the possibility of reducing losses due to employee theft and negligence.

If they were in Delaware, of course, they might find that such extremes are unnecessary. The full text of the Delaware statute (19 Del. C. Sec. 709) is available on the State of Delaware’s website.

[H/T: Workplace Prof Blog]

More at BBC News

Delaware has been ranked first among all fifty states in the quality and fairness of its litigation environment, according to an annual study titled “Lawsuit Climate” published by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform. Delaware has been awarded this honor for six straight years.

The survey polled approximately 1000 corporate attorneys at the nation’s largest employers and took into consideration factors such as judge competence and impartiality, jury fairness, quality of attorneys, and timeliness for trial. Along with Delaware, Nebraska, Maine, Indiana and Utah were ranked in the top-five. Rounding out the bottom five were Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Illinois and West Virginia.

Delaware’s state courts have been named the best in the country for tort and contract litigation. This is the sixth consecutive year the First State has been awarded this honor. In our experience, the same result holds true for employment litigation.

Not surprisingly, Delaware and the other four states that ranked highest, Nebraska, Maine, Indiana and Utah, appoint their judges, and the three states that ranked at the bottom, West Virginia, Louisiana and Mississippi, all elect their judges.

So maybe democracy isn’t what its cracked up to be?
Or maybe it’s a bit more complicated.

Unlike the other branches of government, the courts are not supposed to simply reflect the will of the people. Judges are required to apply the law, whether “the people” like it or not. And that’s where it gets messy for elected judges. As we can easily glean from what goes on in our neighboring state of Pennsylvania, judges have to spend large sums of money to get elected, and they get most of that money from interested constituencies like trial lawyers and unions. So when a large donor, in the form of an attorney as advocate, or a union as litigant, appears before the judge, . . .

. . . Will the judge “bite the hand that feeds him?”
Human nature has the answer.

That is not to say that Delaware and other states that appoint judges do so free of politics. But the politician in Delaware who appoint the judges, Delaware’s governor, has for many years recognized that Delaware stands to gain from maintaining its preeminent position as a quality court system, and governors of both parties have made a point of appointing capable jurists rather than political hacks. What that means is that all parties in a lawsuit get a fair shake based on the merits of the case, rather than money talking to tip the scales in favor of the largest contributors.

And that is how a real democracy should work.