Agencies urged to avoid generational stereotypes

As agencies hire a new crop of federal employees, they need to understand generational differences and avoid stereotyping younger co-workers, said speakers Monday at the 2008 Government Performance Summit in Arlington, Va.

"Don't fall prey to stereotypes," Ed Powell, director of business development for Monster Government Solutions, said. "We're all reading a lot of stuff about the millennials right now, and there's a tendency to paint them with the same brush, saying they're all selfish, they all got trophies for seventh place. They can be very different…. It's all about going out and finding people who are a good job fit, a cultural fit and a lifestyle fit."

Wendy Stoner, who runs the financial management specialist program in the General Services Administration's Office of the Chief Financial Officer, says she interviews candidates for the two-year internship by asking about experiences and problem-solving approaches, rather than looking for generational characteristics.

"I listen to the experiences they've had; I have them tell me about an experience that didn't go well," Stoner says. "I want to know, do they blame others for the outcome, or do they take ownership? Do they give me strategies for what they would have done if they had to do it again? I don't want the person who blames someone else," she says. "All of my questions are behavioral-based."

Treating interns like professionals have yielded impressive results for GSA, Stoner says. Since the program launched in 1999, 58 percent of the interns have stayed on at GSA, 63 percent of those who remained and are eligible for promotion beyond the GS-12 level have been promoted, and one is now in the Senior Executive Service.

"The people I rotate these folks to call and say 'Can you send me more? I can't get enough of [them],'" Stoner said. "They share their experience and technological knowhow. For Gen-X and Gen-Y [millennials], they are not into this tenure thing, because if they can see a path where they can excel and advance in their generation, they can be exactly what we're looking for."

Agencies should allow younger hires to be catalysts for change, said Mark Charnock, vice president and general manager of MonsterTRAK, Monster.com's portal for young workers. "I know it's hard, but they will become change agents for you because they'll change the way their peers behave and how other generations behave," said Charnock. "That's where I see the light."

He acknowledged that the media and human resources community have paid too much attention to the 12 percent of the population he described as "The Clueless," young people who don't identify strongly with work and depend financially on their parents. But he said that employers need to take more responsibility for teaching young people what work entails and convincing them to remain in jobs for a reasonable amount of time, rather than hop around to other opportunities.

"There's little understanding [among millennials] of what work requires. This is our fault, not their fault," Charnock said. "We have an opportunity to define what the workplace is going to be at the interview, and we need to change that as we move forward."