In some organizations, Boomers have spent an adult lifetime building a culture that they believe to be different and special. In fact, cultural values like mutual respect, honesty, transparency, freedom to fail, and freedom to be different may be an outgrowth of Age of Aquarius values.

As Boomers contemplate their retirement and observe the new values that Gen Y brings to an organization, the Boomers are starting to realize that the culture they spent a lifetime building is in imminent peril of disappearing. So communicating the strength and importance of cultural values has become a central element in all of the NEOs I am currently developing.

What is happening in your organization? Do you have a set of values that is worth preserving? Or is your culture in need of an overhaul? I’d enjoy hearing how you and your organization address this issue – from both the preservation aspect, and in terms of communications.

Meanwhile, members of Generation Y (born between 1980 and 1999) are entering the workforce in droves, bringing new ways of doing things that often drive Boomers nuts. 

The influx of Gen Y in the workplace and the transfer of knowledge from Boomers to Gen Y, has led many of Cambria’s clients to take a new look at their organization’s approach to recruiting and onboarding (or new employee orientation).  Over the past year Cambria has been asked to conduct studies of public facing career/recruiting sections on our clients’ web sites as well as to develop onboarding programs for senior executives and new employee orientation programs that address all employees.

Below are some highlights of our findings from building recruiting and orientation systems for our clients: 

Career/Recruiting Sites

• Generation Y wants to use an organization’s career/recruiting site the same way they use Google.  They want to rapidly access information that is relevant to them.  One focus group participant said to Cambria, “If I can’t figure out why I should stay on a web site within three minutes, I’m gone.”
• Generation Y does not want to read a lot of brochure text on a career site unless they have determined that they are ready for a deep dive. 
• They have little interest in seeing video of senior executives extolling the virtues of their organization and their vision for the future.

Executive Onboarding

• The cost of losing a senior executive within six months to a year of their hire date is between $650,000 and $1,000,000.
• In most organizations there is no consistent, standardized enterprise-wide system for onboarding senior executives.
• Generally, executive onboarding is geographic specific on an office-by-office basis.
• Also, most organizations do not benchmark their onboarding process against best practices.

New Hire Orientation

• Cambria noted that in many organizations a significant number of new employees do not receive an effective and consistent orientation to their new company.
• It is not unusual to meet employees who have been with an organization for a year who have yet to complete a new employee orientation program.
• In many organizations, new hire orientation varies by geography and the individual perspective of the person delivering the orientation.

So Where Does Your Organization Fit In?

Recruiting, selection and hiring is a multi-step process, one that begins with attracting candidates and applications and continues through candidate interviews, making an offer, and providing an orientation/onboarding experience that conveys the culture of your organization and motivates new employees.  The bottom line is that the employees you want to attract, hire, and retain may have varying information requirements and expectations, and ways of learning about your organization – through the internet, your organization’s website, and new hire orientation/onboarding programs.  Are your recruiting, selection and onboarding processes designed to attract, assess and integrate Gen Y?  If not, you may want to make this a priority as you consider your talent development and management strategies for the coming year.