Thursday Thirst- I'll Take a Cup of Courtesy?
Written on 3:48 PM by B
When I first began working professionally last June, I was an intern. I was just donewith college and ready to work for a year or two before moving on to medical school. I was retained after my internship and currently work full time as a contractor with the Dept. of Health and Human Services and also part-time as a contractor with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Needless to say, I have learned a whole lot more on the job about professionalism than I ever learned in school despite my resume-worthy list of leadership experience on campus. My on-site supervisor will let me send an email on her behalf these days but it wasn't always so. For a few months at the beginning of my internship, she would read over my electronic communication drafts and polish them often taking out chunks of pointless information. Her tact with correcting me has been priceless, but not everyone gets an understanding mentor on entry into the workforce. Adaptation communication skills are often left out in our formal education and unlike I thought, your boss is not the 'real world' version of your college instructor.
Perhaps you've seen the commercial where a frazzled baby boomer mother tries desperately to communicate with her millennial daughter and traditionalist mother colloquially as they reply to her in text speak. The famous line from Grandma, " IDK, my BFF Rose ," had me laughing the first time I heard it. Perhaps that grandma was a little off the mark but the communication gap between the millennials and boomers isreal. This gap doesn't only exist at home; it follows millennials to the joband has become the reason for many-a-raised brow. I have scanned numerous blogs and spoken to a number ofseasoned colleagues on the issue to get the perspectives from both sides of the fence and a few things that were mentioned often were: Baby boomer employers say:
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Millennials have no sense of email etiquette, they fail to address the recipient appropriately and usually type no more than one or two lines. They are also in the habit of sending an email for everything when they could take a few minutes to address higher-ups in person.
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Who taught these kids how to speak? Using the proper lingo does not seem to be one of millennials' aspirations. Banish words like: "Like," and "you know" from your conversations with other professionals and clients, they make a person sound incompetent!
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I should not have to baby any adult on the jobby s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g out e-v-e-r-y-thing! What did you learn in school?
Millennials say:
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If I have just one question, why bother with the formalities in an email? I'm just saying what I need to, nothing more. It would probably take me less time to send you an email than it would for me to walk toyour office!
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What's the deal with sounding uppity when you're talking to people? As long as they get what I'm saying, I'm not concerned about it.
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Be specific!
Most of my resources seemed to agree on the differences in communication styles and the solutions offered to bridge the gap tend to bequite mixed. Some voices on the issue suggest that employers adapt to the millennial styles in order to retain them and others suggest that millennials adapt to the workforce as there is a pre-existing hierarchy in which they areallowed the least say. Some websites even go as far as offering a manual to begiven by HR to supervisors along with their millennials ( Tips on how to keep your millennial employees from leaving ). With what currently seems like an online battle between the two groups, one of the most valid comments I found was that both groups have something to give and something to learn. While Gen Y is synonymous with technology, their older counterparts need a little help. Companies could pair the younglings with older mentors and have them help in that area while the mentors share experiences with mentees on professionalism. The reason this would work? Millennials learn fast!
Why can't we all get along? Is mentoring a viable solution?
-O
