Thursday, June 30, 2022

Hiring Millennial and Gen Z

... treat them like SNOWFLAKES, right?!

What Employers Need to Understand About Hiring Millennial and Gen Z Workers

The Great Resignation is still raging on, and employers need to work harder than ever to attract and retain great talent. Hiring millennial workers isn’t always a walk in the park.

Currently, 32% of Gen Z and 28% of Millennials are open to new career opportunities, but employers will have to meet their conditions first. From work flexibility to an increased focus on company ethics, the younger generations have higher expectations of employers when it comes to looking for their next job.

Randstad’s latest Workmonitor study provides key insights into how the global workforce is shifting their attitudes when it comes to where and how they work. Here’s what employers need to know if they want to attract top Gen Z and Millennial talent…

They Won’t Stick Around If a Job Gets in the Way

Emily Hoang, 23, is a recent college graduate. She believes that the younger generation entering the workforce has different priorities than those who came before them. “Gen Z is putting their happiness and wellbeing before their jobs. Which I’m a full supporter of. If you’re not happy with what you’re doing, your work output won’t be as great.”

In fact, the study found that 56% of employees aged 18-24 are less willing to sacrifice their personal time and are willing to quit their jobs if they feel that the job is preventing them from enjoying their lives.

Randstad CEO Sander van ‘t Noordende shared one of his key takeaways from the study; “Our data revealed that not only will many younger employees not accept a job that doesn’t meet their expectations, but they are also willing to walk away from one if it interferes with how they want to lead their lives.”

Sabrina Suter, 26, a property manager agrees; “The older generation seems to be more willing to keep a job in which they are unhappy, maybe also because they grew up thinking that they need to work hard and suffer to become successful. The younger generation tends to prioritize happiness and well-being.”

They Care About Company Values

Younger workers also care about the values and ethics of the organizations that they work for. Diversity is one of their top concerns. For example, 49% of Gen Z and 46% of millennials said they wouldn’t work for a company that doesn’t prioritize diversity. Highlighting your organization’s values throughout the recruiting process and in your company’s approach to work is paramount.

This generation is also wary of performative activism and green capitalism. Employers need to do more than simply state that they care about diversity or sustainability. They need to show that they are taking action. One of the most transparent ways to do this is to publish your organization’s action plans for addressing diversity, accessibility, and environmental concerns over the next several years and provide annual reports on the progress and outcomes. While small companies may not have the resources to publish full reports on their progress, they can still dedicate space on their websites, social media profiles, and in their job postings to sharing the company’s values and efforts.

Flexibility Is Non-Negotiable When Hiring Millenial Workers

Some employers are still grappling with decisions around returning to the office this year. However, after two years of remote work, many young workers feel that they’ve already proved their ability to work from home productively. Hoang added that “COVID has shown people that remote work is possible, and they want flexibility.”

Younger generations want a choice about where and how they work. 83% of those surveyed by Randstad reported that flexibility around work location is important to them.

Suter shared her own definition of workplace flexibility; “Flexibility to me means “having the choice.” It would be ideal to have the possibility to decide whether I would prefer to work in the office or remotely. Moreover, it is important that a job enables work-life balance and does not interfere with [my] personal life.” Both location flexibility and schedule flexibility are desired by younger workers, and companies that are willing to offer these options will have an edge over the competition when recruiting top talent.

In fact, employers are finding that increasing work location flexibility can also help them boost diversity within their organization. Hayden Brown, CEO of Upwork, previously shared that increased location flexibility can also help companies meet their diversity objective; “I can’t tell you the number of CEOs I talked to who are thinking, ‘I have to solve the diversity challenge in my business, and remote work is one of the key tools… We have to let go of this very office-centric culture and incorporate people who are in a lot of geographies.”

Pitch Your Value Proposition

The labor market is becoming increasingly competitive, and employers need to consider whether they’re offering enough to attract and retain great workers. Some key considerations for employers should be providing competitive compensation, reevaluating your benefits offerings, and providing adequate recognition.

22% of employees included in the Work Monitor survey reported that they have seen enhanced benefits offerings over the past 12 months. What this means for employers is that it is a suitable time to review your offerings to see if they are still competitive compared to what others in your industry or region may be offering. Small businesses that cannot afford to increase salaries or enhance benefits packages may need to turn to non-financial perks such as enhanced flexibility to stay competitive.

They’re Interested in Self-Improvement

Younger employees also have a great desire to learn and improve their skills. 88% said that they would engage in learning and development programs if given the opportunity. Offering development opportunities not only benefits workers but also helps employers develop a more skilled workforce while improving retention and job satisfaction.

Formal learning and development programs are ideal, but there are also low-cost options that small businesses can use to aid employees in their self-improvement. LinkedIn Learning courses, internal cross-training or job shadowing, and resources like HR Campfire’s fireside chats every Friday can help employees learn new things without a significant time commitment or high cost.

They’re Still Great Workers

Do not get the wrong idea about Gen Z or Millennial workers. While they ask for more from employers, it is not out of laziness or an aversion to work. In fact, Randstad found that younger respondents placed more importance on work than older respondents.

However, to attract talent and keep them engaged, you need to work harder to provide better value to employees through work-life balance, development opportunities, and social causes that are important to them. If you do this right, it is still very possible to build a very loyal workforce with younger staff and keep them for years to come.

What challenges or successes are you experiencing with hiring younger workers? Share them in our People forum…

Kaylyn McKenna

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Matryoshka of Vagina

... you think?

News

Madonna’s NFT Collab With Beeple Is a Matryoshka of Vagina Horrors

Can’t Madonna just donate to charity without making everyone look at a 3D scan of her vagina?

by Sarah Rose SharpMay 10, 2022

Madonna and Beeple, still from NFT video artwork *Mother of Nature* (2022) (all images courtesy the artists)

When someone has traded on their image as a provocateur for as long as Madonna has, and seen so much success from being transgressive in their sexuality, it must be difficult to accept that they have absolutely no reason — and I cannot emphasize this enough — to partner with Beeple and make NFTs about it.

In a blockbuster collaboration that literally no one on Earth wants to deal with, the unlikely duo announced a series of three NFTs (non-fungible tokens) made by Beeple, who famously brought the earning power of crypto art to the forefront of collective consciousness, starring a digitized version of Madonna graphically birthing things out of her digital vagina.

The works, collectively titled Mother of Creation, are a matryoshka doll of nightmares, a sort of telescoping abyss of bad things contained in worse things, opening to reveal even worse things. Start with NFTs (already, fuck this) — multiply by Beeple (please quit while you’re ahead, or already slightly behind) — add Madonna (if you are not following Madonna on TikTok, you have no idea how weird it’s gotten, but be warned you cannot actually unsee the horrors contained therein) — and then, then have a nest of centipedes crawl out of her vagina. Also the centipedes are little robots. Also, Madonna is reading the poetry of Rumi in voice-over.

You do NOT want to know where that centipede has been, I promise you. Madonna and Beeple, still from NFT video artwork *Mother of Nature* (2022)

“When Mike [Beeple] and I decided to collaborate on this project a year ago, I was excited to have the opportunity to share my vision of the world as a mother and an artist with Mike’s own unique point of view,” said Madonna in a statement on the Mother of Creation website, where all three NFTs can be seen.

“It’s been an amazing journey building this together from an intellectual idea to an emotional story, giving birth to art,” she continued. “I wanted to investigate the concept of creation, not only the way a child enters the world through a woman’s vagina, but also the way an artist gives birth to creativity.”

Mission accomplished, Madonna! You explored the heck out of those concepts. You sure did.

Really, the only saving grace of this entire spectacle is that proceeds from the sale of the NFTs will benefit three nonprofit organizations picked by Madonna and Beeple in support of mothers across the globe. The Voices of Children Foundation has been working to support the women and children affected by the war in Ukraine by providing psychological and urgent care. The City of Joy is a transformational leadership community for women survivors of severe violence, located in Bukavu in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Black Mama’s Bail Out began in 2017 with a mass bail-out of Black mothers and caregivers who are disproportionately incarcerated. Sixty percent of people in local women’s jails have not even been convicted of a crime and are awaiting trial — and 80 percent of them are parents. The triptych was created with infrastructure support by Moonpay, who will also contribute an additional $100,000 to each charity.

Benefiting mothers and children in need is a laudable aim, especially as basic reproductive rights are under direct assault in the US from within our corrupt political and judicial systems. But after zooming right up in Madonna’s virtual cooter, based on meticulous 3D scan of her actual cooter, only to have a giant tree then grow out of it reeeeeeeallly begs the question of whether the ends in this case justify the means. Or whether Madonna is potentially rich enough to just donate to charity without making literally everyone look at her vagina. Then again, if past is precedent, Madonna likes having people look at and think about her vagina, so I guess good on her, for finding a fresh way to renew interest in the area. Right? Honestly I have so many questions, but I think I can speak for all of us and in summary by simply saying: WHY? WHY? WHYYYYY?

Metaverse Is Left Unregulated

If the Metaverse Is Left Unregulated, Companies Will Track Your Gaze and Emotions

Getty Images

IDEAS

BY TOM WHEELER

JUNE 20, 2022 7:05 AM EDT

Tom Wheeler was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission from 2013 to 2017. He is currently a senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution. His new book, TECHLASH: Who Makes the Rules in the New Gilded Age, will be published this fall.

The world’s leading neurologists assembled in Seattle earlier this month for a Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications. Sponsors of the event included Google and Reality Labs, a division of Meta Platforms, Inc., the company formerly known as Facebook.

Poets say the eyes are the window into a person’s soul. Neurologists are less romantic, finding that eye movements can reveal our thought processes. The companies that once harnessed psychological research to design products that would hold the user’s attention are now probing how to build a new business—the metaverse—around neurological science.

One way of thinking about the move from the internet we know today to the metaverse is as a move from observation to participation. In the 2-D internet experience, the user observes what is on the screen. The 3-D metaverse utilizes optical equipment to connect the user to algorithms that put them “inside” a pseudo-world. Facebook is so convinced it is the future that it changed its name to Meta Systems, Inc., and last year invested $10 billion in developing metaverse products and services.

Another way to think the metaverse is as an entire world of surveillance. Meta has already patented technology to build eye tracking and facial expression tracking into the optical equipment worn to access the metaverse. These and other tracking capabilities mean that hooking oneself up to a metaverse device could be more revealing than hooking up to a lie detector.

In short, the biometric data collected from metaverse users will make the privacy issues around in the current online environment seem like child’s play. Tracking clicks and keystrokes pales in comparison to tracking emotions through biometric data. Beyond the implications to the individual of gathering of private information, there’s the matter of whether the companies that have dominated social media through their dominance of data will similarly dominate biometric data and use it to crush new metaverse entrants.

All this raises serious new questions about what the standards for metaverse company behavior should be and whether governments on either side of the Atlantic are prepared or capable of dealing with that question. Now is the moment to consider what we want our digital world to look like going forward. But first we must determine what we like about what we have today and what is it we want to correct.

The European Union’s much heralded and much needed Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act (DSA) attempt to establish behavioral expectations for the existing online experience. The acts have been provisionally adopted, but the regulatory infrastructure has yet to be put in place. That infrastructure will require the European Commission to evolve from a technocratic body to a regulatory body.

Whatever structure is ultimately put in place, it will need the regulatory agility to not only address the problems we experience today, but also new developments such as the metaverse. Policy makers have the opportunity to use the metaverse as a transition point in the digital era. What do we like about the internet platforms that we want to continue? What is it we don’t like and want to reform? With those decisions as baselines, what do we want the next iteration of the internet – the metaverse – to look like?

Thus far in the digital era, the rules have been made by the companies, who strongly resist government efforts to oversee what they do. But, Sir Nick Clegg, Meta’s President of Global Policy, has perhaps opened the door. Clegg recently wrote of the need to “create thoughtful rules and put guardrails in place as the metaverse develops.”

This call for rules is tantalizing and worthy of being pursued. The first test will be whether the regulatory structure of the E.U. (or the U.S. for that matter) can establish baseline behavioral expectations to replace the rules the platform companies have already imposed on the digital marketplace. The second test is whether the regulation will be sufficiently agile to deal with what innovative technologists throw at us next—or whether, if it isn’t, the companies will once again end up writing their own rules.

As the digital platforms such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft seized on the open technology of the internet to build their closed platforms, policymakers watched from the sidelines, unsure what to make of the developments. Those innocent days are over. Everyone has learned the consequences of allowing the companies to make their own rules. The metaverse magnifies those consequences. But it also galvanizes the question we need to decide now: By deciding what we want in our digital future, we also declare what we want in our digital today.

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