Worknow_Aotearoa_NZ

EMPLOYERS are refusing to hire Generation Y workers because they lack a work ethic and spend too much time talking to friends in work hours. Source

In my early twenties, I adopted a twin philosophy from a very good friend of mine “…it costs nothing to be nice…”  and that “…if you can’t say anything nice, best say nothing at all…”

I have lived to discover the wisdom of this advice and in my personal experience I have seen and heard that the negative characteristics that people  would attribute to others are most often a reflection of  the person speaking. Quite simply; what you say about others says more about who you are, than who they are.

Hence the assertion of this blog is that those that bemoan Gen Y, probably just wish they were more like us. It’s opinionated and at times bias but it is an attempt to develop conversation around opposing thoughts; drawn from three of the many hundreds of comments that the Article Gen Y too lazy and unfocused to hire generated.

Work Life Balance

Pretty sick and tired of “he/she who is the centre of the universe” and “work” being “somewhere you go during the day”.

Just a little jealous? I reiterate my stance on work life balance fairly often. The reality for us is that, unlike earlier generations, work is NOT our life. Work is important to us but we’ve been taught that it is better, for our health, to work to live, rather than live to work.

In addition to work we may also be juggling study, friends, family, sport, other paid and unpaid work commitments. Hence the need for flexibility.  There are people in every generation that would benefit from a more balanced approach to work and life.

Respect My Authoritah!

These brats have no respect for experienced people. You treat them well and they crap on you.

Experience alone does not qualify one for respect, being respectful toward others does. Respect, like Love,  is something you give not get.  May I suggest leadership:-

• Our concept of leadership 2.0 involves asking questions, connecting and collaborating.
• We seek leaders that inspire, support and encourage our personal growth and development.
• We want to feel that we work to contribute to something meaningful.
• We will find new and improved ways to increase effectiveness, efficiency and productivity in business.

Gen Y’s Great Expectations

The main issue with Gen Y’s (but not all) is their expectations are ridiculous. They come into the workplace and after one year they want a promotion and if they don’t get it, they throw a hissy fit…I think there is some resentment in some of our older people as we had to work our way up and earn respect in the workplace and pay would come later. These days they think and expect to be CEOs at 24.

We are entering the workforce the most highly educated generation, yet I can see that to those that did not have to pay for an education our pay expectations may seem disproportionate.  Still, education has burdened our generation with billions of dollars worth of student debt. Is it unrealistic of us to seek an income that may see us debt free within the next 15 years?

And aspire to leadership, we shall because our entrepreneurial spirit makes us increasingly willing and able to take risks,  our education has armed us with knowledge and insight and today’s technology allows us to connect, share and collaborate in new, more effective ways.

Gen Y Collaborators

Love us or hate us 10 years from now we will represent almost 40% of the New Zealand workforce. Maybe it’s time to accept that aspects of our work ethic and the workplace freedom that we aspire to are  useful, perhaps even necessary, for the growth of a knowledge economy.

Living Values

Today I took the time to focus on balance in my work & life. This investment of time has made me immensely grateful for my beautiful family and friends, the amazing team I am a part of, for my health and happiness and great community I am a part of. This is indeed a beautiful life. There is happiness and fulfillment in living our values

• BALANCE : work / life – future / present
• GRATITUDE : We are thankful for our blessings and embrace both rewarding and challenging circumstances with open hearts.

The Importance of Values

A wise person once offered me a very simple piece of relationship advice

“…make sure you talk about and discover what you each value…”

Now, I took that advice and to my dismay discovered that this guy that I was into thought “democracy” more important than my most fundamental life values.

This simple revelation was a turning point in that relationship and eventually, try as I might to think “…perhaps it didn’t matter…” the ever widening gulf between our personal values led to the demise of said relationship.

Lesson Learnt.

Finding Common Ground

As a new venture team, one of the most important activities our team undertook was taking the time to sit down and share with each other our goals, our dreams and our values and discuss what we hoped to achieve with Worknow.

We came up with a list of guiding values and our statement of intent which is simply:-

to create a world class business that helps people and effects change.

We also took the time to discuss our strengths and potential weakness’ which, as you may know, have more in common than many people expect and through this process discovered that we are a very strong team.

People. Our Greatest Strength

I can say with confidence that out team is one of our greatest strengths, we are talented, motivated, skilled and experienced but more than that we are aligned. We found our common ground and the shared purpose towards which we, as a team and individuals, aspire.

But it is not just our team that I mean when I say people are our greatest strength. It is everyone that we come in contact with during this process.

In order for our business to work we need to discuss and discover what other people value and aspire to achieve. And in learning these things find a common ground upon which to collaborate and achieve shared goals.

It’s starting to get a bit text book right, but honestly the more people we talk to the more feedback we get, the more questions we are asked and the easier it becomes to clarify and refine exactly how we will achieve our goals.

Worknow Community People

We are gathering a community of talented people that seek new more collaborative and flexible ways to work together because we believe networking technology can help foster and harness the collective potential of existing communities and distributed groups.