Welcome to the August 30, 2006 edition of The Total View
published by Success Performance Solutions, Written by Ira S. Wolfe
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1. Meet your next workforce: 2010 Beloit College Mindset List
Members of the class of 2010, entering college this week and next, were mostly born in 1988. For them: Billy Carter, Lucille Ball, Gilda Radner, Billy Martin, Andy Gibb, and Secretariat have always been dead.
Each August since 1998, Beloit College in Wisconsin releases the Beloit College Mindset List, a look at the cultural touchstones that have shaped the lives of today’s first-year students. Whether we like the attitudes or not of younger workers, managers better learn to appreciate how they see the world. These students are our future workforce and without them as employees (or customers), you might as well just close up shop.
My first match with generational gaps came in 1990. I remember that a group of us was standing around our reception area. At the time most of us were in our 30s. A few younger assistants were barely 21 years old. In the background a song was playing and the youngest of the group, Robyn, says, "I love Paul McCartney." My office manager Shirley innocently enough says "I didn’t know you like 60s music" to which my assistant laughs. "That’s not 60s," she says," that’s Wings."
Defending herself my manager says Paul McCartney will always be a Beatle to her to which Robyn replies, "Oh I heard of them." I then jumped in and asked if Robyn can name the Beatles. He got one – "the dead guy, John something." George and Ringo were forgotten history.
Time passes quickly and so do life’s reference points. After reading this year’s Mindset list, I quickly "googled" the Internet to find the first published Mindset List, a mere eight years ago. This week’s column features my top 25 highlights of the Class of 2010 plus a few significant events from the Class of 2002.
My-oh-my: where does the time go?
1. The Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union.
2. They have known only two presidents.
3. For most of their lives, major U.S. airlines have been bankrupt.
4. There has always been only one Germany.
5. They have never heard anyone actually "ring it up" on a cash register.
6. They are wireless, yet always connected.
7. A stained blue dress is as famous to their generation as a third-rate burglary was to their parents’.
8. A coffee has always taken longer to make than a milkshake.
9. Smoking has never been permitted on U.S. airlines.
10. They grew up with and have outgrown faxing as a means of communication.
11. "Google" has always been a verb.
12. Text messaging is their email.
13. Bar codes have always been on everything, from library cards and snail mail to retail items.
14. Madden has always been a game, not a Superbowl-winning coach.
15. Phantom of the Opera has always been on Broadway.
16. Carbon copies are oddities found in their grandparents’ attics.
17. They have always known that "In the criminal justice system the people have been represented by two separate yet equally important groups."
18. They have rarely mailed anything using a stamp.
19. They have always been searching for "Waldo."
20. Sara Lee has always made underwear.
And the one that sent me "googling":
21. They are not aware that "flock of seagulls hair" has nothing to do with birds flying into it.
To view the entire 2006 Beloit College Mindset List go to:
http://www.super-solutions.com/2006BeloitCollegeMindsetList.asp
And you might want to sit down for these. Meet the class of 2002, the worker pool now in their mid 20s:
1.. They have no meaningful recollection of the Reagan era, and did not know he had ever been shot.
2. There has only been one Pope. They can only remember one other president.
3. They were 11 when the Soviet Union broke apart, and do not remember the Cold War.
4. They have never feared a nuclear war. "The Day After" is a pill to them—not a movie.
5. They are too young to remember the Space Shuttle Challenger blowing up.
6. Their lifetime has always included AIDS.
7. They never had a polio shot, and likely, do not know what it is.
8. The expression "you sound like a broken record" means nothing to them.
9. They have likely never played Pac Man, and have never heard of "Pong."
10. Star Wars looks very fake to them, and the special effects are pathetic.
11. "The Tonight Show" has always been with Jay Leno.
12. They have no idea when or why Jordache jeans were cool.
13. They have no idea that Americans were ever held hostage in Iran.
14. McDonald’s never came in Styrofoam containers.
15. There has always been MTV, and it has always included non-musical shows.
Source: 2006 Beloit College, Beloit, Wisconsin
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2. Perfect Labor Storm Alerts #568 to 569
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Fact #568: Wal-Mart is the world’s largest corporation, according to 2005 Fortune 500 list. It operates over 5,000 stores worldwide, nearly 4,000 in the U.S. and employs over 1.6 million people— 1.3 million in the United States alone. In the U.S., another 3 million people have jobs directly dependent on purchases from Wal-Mart. (Source: Wal-Mart)
Fact #569: Wal-Mart is as big as Home Depot, Kroger, Target, Costco, Sears and Kmart combined. Each year Wal-Mart sells more by Saint Patrick’s Day than Target sells all year. More than half of all Americans live within five miles of a Wal-Mart store. Ninety percent live withing fiftenn miles of a Wal-Mart. With nearly 4,000 stores, that is more than one store for every single county in the U.S. Each year 93 percent of American households shop at least once at Wal-Mart. Worldwide, 7.2 billion people will go to a Wal-Mart store.
(Source: The Wal-Mart Effect)
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3. NEW! Generational Style Assessment
Test your ability to communication with Gen X, Gen Y, Boomers, and Traditionalists. Our NEW Generational Style Assessment evalautes the communication or relational style you typically project when interacting with individuals or groups of people from different generations. It then provides you insight into those styles that work for you, and what to do about the styles that don’t. This self-scoring workbook includes the questionnaire, response sheet, how to interpret your results, and how to understand the different styles.
More about the Generational Style Assessment today
http://www.super-solutions.com/diversity-gender.asp
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4. Managing the Generation Mix
Your workforce is aging. You are committed to hiring new young talent. Everyone agrees you need some new energy injected into your organization. You’ve had it with Gen-Xers but like what you see in the younger Generation Ys who are just entering the workforce.
But before you go there, what will you talk about? What events have shaped their lives?
* Ricky Nelson, Richard Burton, Samantha Smith, Laura Ashley, Orson Welles, Karen Ann Quinlan, Benigno Aquino, and the U.S. Football League have always been dead.
* Iraq has always been a problem.
* "Ctrl Alt Del" is as basic as "ABC."
* Bert and Ernie are old enough to be their parents.
* An automatic is a weapon, not a transmission.
To order Managing the Generation Mix and other pocket guides:
http://www.super-solutions.com/pocket-guides.asp#PB_GenX
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5. Quotes from Hire Authorities
The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.
John D. Rockefeller, industrialist
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6. Twenty Supervisor Slip-Ups That Lead to Hiring-Related Lawsuits
UPDATED August 7 – Includes new case law reviews involving background checks, reference checks and discrimination. Find out why
others got sued … and how you can avoid these dangerous pitfalls.
This report will give supervisors the tools they need to say and do the right things when interviewing prospective job candidates; the confidence they need to conduct probing, in-depth interviews without provoking lawsuits. This 40-page report (delivered electronically in .pdf format) now provides you:
A Model Non-Discrimination Policy
A Model Background Check Policy
A Model Reference Checks Policy
A Model At-Will Employee Policy
A Model Equal Opportunity Employment Policy
"20 Supervisor Slip-Ups" is written in a helpful,"coaching" voice, especially for supervisors.
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Ira S. Wolfe Copyright 2006 – All Rights Reserved. Reprints and other distribution by permission only.
