A friend of mine from school graduated with a finance degree the year before I finished my degree. Now, he works for an accounting firm in downtown Denver that takes day-end numbers from mutual funds and calculates their values.

When I first heard this, I tried to put a moratorium on further work stories from him. I have no interest in hearing about accounts payable, receivables, P&Ls, or any such nonsense on my free time. I made it very clear that discussion of such items, or even of his work in general, would be frowned upon.

He maintained, however, that his work isn’t all that bad, so I told him to prove it. Here’s what he told me:

On Friday afternoons, as the week is winding down, an e-mail goes out through the office. It reads, “Beer is in the fridge.” And sure enough, employees who wander to the refrigerator learn that cold beers are to be found there. They mill down from their workstations, grab a cold brew, and start the weekend off on the boss man’s tab.

Argument over. My friend’s employer rules.

Now, I don’t say this because beer is a guaranteed way to win my heart. The beer isn’t what makes this a clutch move. What makes this a clutch move is that my friend’s employer is giving his employees something they can’t drive down the street to buy.

First, he’s showing his employees a little appreciation for what they do. I hate to use cliches, but actions speak louder than words.  Taking a little time and money to pick up a 12 oz. “Thank You” card demonstrates a different level of recognition than walking over, patting someone on the back and saying, ” See you Monday.”

Second, he’s showing them that he has an understanding of their interests. Young people enjoy the chance to hang out and share a beer once in a while, and giving that opportunity to employees is a way of telling them you know how they enjoy spending their time. If we see that you have an understanding that we enjoy doing something other than creating spreadsheets, we know that you don’t think of us as automatons whose sole purpose is productivity. That’s comforting.

Third, he’s letting his employees know that the office isn’t a terrible place.  The beers in the fridge say that the office can be fun once in a while. If the only thing I can associate with the office is collating copies, I will not be thrilled to return. But if I know I’ll have a few opportunities to enjoy myself through the course of the week, I’ll be back, and I’ll plow through my paperwork so I can enjoy the fun stuff when it comes up.

My friend’s boss puts a few beers into a fridge and ends up saying all of that. What are you doing to tell your employees that you appreciate them, that you understand their interests, and that your office isn’t a terrible place?

I’ve heard it said that young people feel entitled to pampering from our employers because we’re a spoiled group of money-grubbers whose sense of entitlement is rivaled only by our inability to write. I want to put that to rest right now.

Us young folk, like all employees, express our preferences through our actions. For the most part, the preference being expressed is for pay. The more a person is paid, the more likely he is to express his preference for a given job by staying.

In the case of Gen Why, however, money isn’t the only factor in the job hunt. We’re young, so for the most part, we don’t have mortgages or kids to consider when we make financial decisions. Many of us have the chance to move back home if things don’t work out, and doing so doesn’t carry the social stigma it once did. (In 2001, American Demographics journal reported that 38% of adult singles lived with their parents. At present, this writer is included in that 38%.)

With the the removal of these particular financial angles from our decision-making process, our choices of where to work can be more of an expression of where we enjoy working than other generations’ choices ever were. Now, this isn’t to say that money doesn’t talk loudly. Six figures will always be six figures. But if you can’t offer piles of money on which young people can sleep, you’ll have to offer something else we’ll enjoy so we prefer to work for you.

These preferences have nothing to do with a sense of entitlement and everything to do with incentives. People respond to incentives, and young people are no different. Getting it out of your head that we expect an X-Box in every office and recognizing that we are, in fact, simply responding to a different set of incentives than a Baby Boomer might is the first step in winning young employees. The fact is, we don’t expect the X-Box. Really. We don’t. But we do prefer an office that has one. That little chance to unwind might make the difference between staying at a particular office or looking for an otherwise similar office.

I’m not telling you that you should turn into a sycophant. I’m not asking you to bend over backward to pamper an entitled generation of me-firsts with no sense of loyalty. I certainly don’t expect you to convert your entire office into a playground because my generation has been told at every turn that we’re special. What I am saying is that young employees are more willing, and able, than ever to make decisions based on what we like to do. Those who don’t recognize this fact are going to get left behind. So, recognize this difference, and make your workplace more fun.

“But it’s a workplace and it’s supposed to be functional, not fun.”

When you’re training your 14th Gen Why for the same position that the employer down the street with the X-Box has kept filled the entire time with one well-trained young person, feel free to drop me an e-mail explaining the functionality of your situation. Fun is functional because it keeps us around so we can rock your business. If you don’t have a billion dollar labor budget (and even if you do), it’s going to save you time and money in the long-run if you make your workplace a fun place.

So forget the line you’ve been fed about entitlement and start making the workplace more fun for the sake of your bottom-line. Remember: the workplace is a popularity contest. If you’re not winning, you’re losing money.

Danger Zone

Getting buy-in from a 16-year-old is not easy, especially when you’re talking about something with all the glamor and excitement of microorganisms. It’s not made any easier when you’re attempting to get buy-in with something hokey.

In the food service industry, food is supposed to spend as little time as possible between the temperatures of 40 and 140 F. Bacteria love these conditions and grow exponentially in them. Thus, it is very important to minimize the time food spends between these temperatures if you are trying not to kill customers.

Unfortunately, someone decided that this temperature range should be known as the “Food Safety Danger Zone.” Anyone who has ever seen Top Gun knows why this is a bad decision. Emulating popular culture can be a powerful tool when the right subjects are used in the right way. But Kenny Loggins is neither.

Even as someone who understood the importance of keeping food out of the “Danger Zone” I always wanted to eject from the conversation when this subject came up.

Sammy the Sweeper

At one of the restaurants where I worked, the training manuals would present shift routines from workers with names like “Sammy the Sweeper.” There was nothing worse than reading this to a 16-year-old and simultaneously trying to tell him that he needs to take his job seriously.

I had the opportunity to discuss this with the manual’s writer and she explained that it was an attempt to make them a bit less dry, possibly even a little fun. And while I will happily admit that overly dry training material is just as bad for getting buy-in as lame material is, one should take care to avoid talking down to young employees.

If you treat your young people like adults who need information, they’ll behave accordingly. You might even be surprised by the interest they show otherwise dry material. Likewise, if you treat them like children who need fairy tales to be interested in their jobs, you shouldn’t be surprised when staff meetings that don’t involve sock puppets are a struggle for your young staff.

CDs for Sale

During the orientation class I taught for one company, we had to show a video the company had created for the class. Unfortunately, this video was one of the cheesiest things I’ve ever seen. Its single worst quality was the music that played in the background - it could not have been worse. It was like a bear had eaten a recorder and a keyboard and puked them up in a recording studio.

As the facilitators of the class, my co-workers and I knew that trying to present this music as anything other than the atrocity that it was would be suicide for our credibility. So, we did the only thing we could: we made fun of it. As the video began its second or third scene, we would inform the class, usually to muffled laughs, that the soundtrack was for sale after orientation was finished.

As a general rule, the people teaching your orientation should have bought in already. So, when they’re making fun of the material, you know something is wrong.

All right, baby boomers, let’s get one thing straight: If I’m going to be paying for your Social Security, I’d like a lot less lip from you on the way in which I’m going to do it.I was born in the spring of 1986, and that makes me a member of Generation Y, also known as Echo Boomers or Millennials. We’re a group of around 80 million Americans born between 1980 and 1995 (though the specific years vary depending on the source).

While the specific years that define us as a group aren’t settled upon, one thing seems to be: We bring a lot of baggage to the workplace.

Traditionalists report that they are put off by a number of Millennials’ qualities. Whether it’s arriving at work showing too much cleavage, using a form of written communication that makes us appear illiterate, or lacking loyalty to one employer, one can find myriad articles detailing the terrors that can come with hiring one of us.

Much of the conflict has been reported in the Internet technology field. With these tech-savvy new kids coming into a work force once dominated by baby boomers still trying to find a way to deal with the issues of Generation X, conflict is an eventuality.

And the truth is, we can be guilty of these crimes.

Click here to read the full article from the Denver Post