Millennials and Management: We Need Each Other

I suppose one of the biggest reasons I am in HR is for the endless stream of entertainment value produced by employees:

A couple of weeks ago I get an email from an employee who hasn’t yet celebrated his first anniversary in the full-time world of work. He’s telling me that in our payroll system we have been treating his residence as though he’s in, I’ll call it “The Great State of A,” when he actually considers himself to be a resident of “The Great State of B.”  Now, he goes on to tell me that he’s got a problem with this, because when he files his taxes, the State taxes paid showing on his W2 went to State A and to fix this, he wants our accounting department to issue a new W2 showing that the taxes were paid to State B….a false statement. So I call him to get to the heart of his dilemma. When I tell him that books are closed on that tax year, he thinks it would work for him if we put on our letterhead stating we incorrectly paid his payroll tax to State A by mistake and it should have been State B - another falsehood. When I press him to show me when/where/how we would ever have known he was a resident of State B, he couldn’t tell me. I pointed out that outside of his offer letter (when he was still in school), all the employment forms that he completed and signed had his address in State A….in his own handwriting. His persistence on the State B residency did not waver. I need to cut through his line of crap and find out what the real issue is, so I ask him what is so important to him that his residency is in State B? His answer: His hunting licenses are cheaper when he’s a resident of State B. Now that’s entertainment! Request denied. Please go be a knucklehead outside of work hours.

Now, because of the youth and inexperience of the employee in this story, it would be so easy to pile onto the “Millennial” generation, but that’s not fair to this emerging group of talent. People can be knuckleheads at any stage of life, but for now, Millennials are getting most of the press for being a big management challenge - full of mystery and frustration because managers just don’t know how to handle them. 

The point I would stress is this: Whether we are managers, co-workers, or for this moment in history, Millennials, we need each other. For too many young people starting out, the job market is a foreign, sometimes hostile environment. They look for a position that will teach, develop and satisfy their short term aspirations while they sort out the long term. That’s not out of step with any generation I’m aware of. Meanwhile, managers are betting the future of their businesses on finding the best, high-potential hires who want to learn, grow, achieve and succeed….in that order. We need each other. Keep that in mind whenever the people in your world drift from being entertaining and start exasperating you. Place yourself in their skin and see if it changes your perspective.