Gen-Y brokers are often pinned as the future of the industry, but working with a young team comes with its own set of challenges.
Gen-Y brokers are often pinned as the future of the industry, but working with a young team comes with its own set of challenges.
ING Direct’s head of broker distribution Mark Woolnough says the key to working with Gen-Y brokers is understanding their different skills and preferences.
“The younger demographic are very open to new ideas and very keen to take on board new approaches and new technologies, whereas your oldest brokers might be still very comfortable using paper-based applications and meeting the customer at the office or in their home.”
Your business plan and leadership strategies need to remain clear and consistent, says Woolnough, but the way that you communicate those strategies should change for different employees.
“Gen-Y brokers may not want to sit through a 15-slide powerpoint or read a 3-page memo, but something as simple as putting a link into the communication so that they can navigate the detail themselves can really work. It’s about understanding the subtleties in the way they absorb information.”
Business strategy expert Michael McQueen says understanding how Gen-Y brokers are different comes from understanding where they come from.
“Gen-Y are the children of baby boomers, so think of how boomers raised their kids. They raised them knowing their rights, having a voice and being unafraid to use their voice to ask for what they want,” McQueen said in an interview with ABC News.
While the younger generation may sometimes be misread as arrogant or presumptuous, says McQueen, what they are really looking for is a chance to get involved and to build a relationship on mutual respect.
"Empower them, get them involved in decision-making, give them some ownership over their work and their output, and if you do that it's amazing how much commitment and energy and innovation they’ll bring to it."
McQueen suggests leaders keep in mind three things when dealing with Gen-Y employees:
- Don’t look too far out
"If you’ve got a young employee and you’re looking to grow them over five, 10 or 15 years they probably wont stay there that long. Shorten the time horizons when it comes to coaching this group. Set short-term, challenging goals: 'What are you going to do this month? Or in the next three months?' As opposed to in an annual performance review."
- Don’t focus on compliance
"So often within workplaces it's all about 'You should. You must. Do it now. We expect', and that sort of language doesn’t work well with this group. It puts them off-side, it estranges rather than engages them very quickly.
"Rather than compliance, focus on commitment, give them a reason to do something, the benefits. It's more about 'What's in it for me' as opposed to 'This is what we expect'."
- Focus on the outcome, not the process
"Gen-Y will come into an organisation where there’s a heavy focus on 'This is how we’ve always done things', and they ask, 'Why?' So answer that question. Be aware that maybe some of the processes you have in place don’t connect with an outcome anymore. Things have moved on, times have changed and maybe you need to be flexible around that."
