Page 87 - Retaining Top Employees

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Know Your Demographics 75

• Work-life balance. The holy grail of the 1990s, the elu-
sive balance between achievement and social interaction
still eludes many. Gen-Xers may be the worst generation
yet at achieving such a balance, but they are also the
most active defenders of the right to have it!
• Acceptance of their views and opinions. Many Gen-Xers
saw their parents (probably their fathers, given the demo-
graphics at the time) keep their thoughts to themselves
and steadily work their way up the corporate ladder. Most
Gen-Xers have been educated in an environment that
eschews such an approach and encourages them to
speak up—and they expect to be heard. An organization-
al culture that assumes that they’ll stay quiet and pay
their dues will not remain attractive for long.
• Respect for the individual. Gen X employees are often
much more individualistic than their more team-oriented
Boomer colleagues and predecessors. This difference can
certainly challenge a manager: a group of individualistic
superstars is no guarantee of easy success—ask the
coach of any sports team! And the Gen-Xer will not toler-
ate an organizational culture that emphasizes the team to
the total exclusion of the individual.

Work Relationship with
Manager
The Army Gets It
The socially independent,
It’s interesting that even the
more mobile Gen-Xer has U.S. Army—an organization
less need than the Boomer emphasizing teamwork,if ever there
to feel that his or her man- was one—has felt a need to shape its
ager is a “buddy.” Yet recruiting activities to recognize the
there’s a higher demand individual. Faced with a rapidly drop-
ping recruitment rate,in the late ’90s
from Gen-Xers for mentor-
it launched its recruiting drive with a
ing and coaching as a
new slogan,“An Army of One.”
managerial skill than at
any time previously. The
reason for this stems from two of the factors already mentioned