You better catch up to Generation Y!

Crisis besets us. The job satisfaction rate in the United States is at an all time low. According to the Conference Board, today, less than 50 percent of Americans are satisfied with their jobs, that is lower than the 61 percent it stood at 20 years ago. It is a disturbing fact on both sides of the isle (on the employer and the employee front) — in other words, there are short falls on the Employer’s front and also the employees. Employers are not providing the most satisfying job conditions to their new marketable Generation Y employees, and the Generation Y contingent itself is playing a compromising role.

Another reported fact is that less than two out of five workers under the age of 25 is satisfied with his/her job. Folks you would expect in the mid/ higher level of their career, ages 45-55, recorded the second lowest satisfaction rate. What is causing this demise in worker satisfaction? It is an important factor to focus considering worker satisfaction translates directly into productivity which blatantly put means that your business makes more dollars.

The following are some of the conditions that influence worker satisfaction rate, especially for motivated new College Graduates who are members of Generation Y:

1. Money: As much as this has always been an issue, its even more of an issue now-a-days. With options in the Technology field being sky high for the truly talented, it is indeed your best option to keep talent happy. Don’t shy away from those giving away bonuses. It takes a lot of manpower resources to bring solid talent into your workplace, don’t lose it by paying less than the industry standard. Money is one of the lynchpins of influencing Gen Y.

2. Location: For someone in the IT world, don’t make them move to a one horse town in Southern Kansas, even if you pay them substantially well. Your employee will be lured by the money for a while, but sooner or later, boredom sets in. All work and no play does not make Jack dull; it makes Jack leave your company and look for something else.

3. Relaxed workplace: Take a hint from companies such as Google, Facebook, Yahoo! — granted these companies can flush in a lot of cash to make a workplace enjoyable and relaxing, but then again, you don’t need a whole lot of cash. An employee with good surroundings is bound to produce more than someone who has been sandwiched between the server room and the printer area. So, if your office environment seems boring, and you can’t afford a whole lot of cash, go down to the local thrift store and get a foosball table or a dart board — just something to make employees feel better about their workplace. Employee rentention also speaks volumes about your company, especially if you are a small business entity.

4. Reduced old school management style bureaucracy: Give your employees the power to make a decision — since ownership leads to higher productivity, give your employees the reins and have them make decisions. The Generation Y does not care for old school bureaucracy and lengthy chains of command to get a mission accomplished, to get the best out of them, challenge them and give them complete ownership of certain parts of a project. You might just be very happily surprised with the results.

Measurement of Employee Satisfaction: http://www.busreslab.com/tips/tipses.htm

HR Advisor: http://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com/

The company I work for, CATS and we have developed an Applicant Tracking System — this is to help you find the right candidate, assist you through the process of interviewing an placing the applicant, but we also have a very ambitious project, which is to be kept under the hat, but it will focus on employee retention — primarily focused on Generation Y to make sure that you are keeping talent that you fought hard for happy. The project is called Less HR. If you’d like to learn more about it, please contact us.