Gen Y want mentors, not ping pong

Recruitment agencies are the REAL problem

Why are workplace, or any other, needs considered generational at all? “Mentoring from senior colleagues and managers’, ‘training’, ‘manageable hours’ and ‘professional recognition’ these seem fundamentally important to workers of any age at any time.

Boom.

If your staff are 20-something, they’re hoping to progress and be where you are at a comparable age.

We’re not self indulgent and entitled, we’re prepared to work hard.

Why do managers so easily forget the opportunity someone afforded them (mentorship, development) when they were in our shoes?

We seek challenge, we seek reward (if and when we meet, exceed and blow the lid off the task and KPI set) and we seek a culture that values us as an individual with a real and valuable contribution.

We can still play ping-pong but that’s not why I’m here.

Mentoring and guidance of junior staff is imperative to address the issue of churn in the industry. The mentoring programme that was introduced by MFA’s NGen 4 years ago was designed to address this issue. It’s interesting that we’re still talking about this problem.

Quite right Rachel. No matter what extras you throw at people (great office location, yoga classes, party central, even good money) if the management and leadership day to day isn’t looking after people (coaching, mentoring, upskilling) then it’s all worthless.
That’s what defines an agency culture and gives you the best idea of what’s really important.

Perhaps think about hiring more mature staff. They tend to stay longer have useful experience and perspective to share with your Ys. Before I arrived in Australia to be told by plenty of agencies like yours (but not yours) that I am overqualified (possibly read over 50), I hired a number of people older and wiser in many ways than me … younger people too. We succeeded and learnt together.

I love this article – thanks for sharing the results of your survey. As a Gen Y’er who worked in a few agencies for 5 years before going in-house a few years back, I can absolutely say that for me having a mentor (and feeling like you’re really growing), as well as working in a positive environment with decent hours, certainly outweighs any frills of the job. It’s about treating staff in a caring and considerate way, and offering them fair remuneration with increases based on good performance. If those things were in order I doubt too many Gen Yers would be in a hurry to leave.

Understand your view but you know why they move ….
Bigger agency brand
Bigger/interesting client brands
Possibly bigger budgets to execute
More people- possibly more opportunities
Bigger parties
More ping pong etc.
Based on the above it is more visible to their professional and social circles about who they work for, how fun it is and what brands are visible in market. I agree that no-one is ever going to say that ping pong was the reason but it’s a symbol of the culture they pitch/have and the fun/recreational/free working thing is very compelling for many.

It’s the same reason we would all love the opportunity to work on client/brand X because of the cache it has over the current one you work on. The above rings true for all generational cohorts, it’s just the last few points aren’t as relevant as you get older as you have other commitments.

75% of staff under the age of 30 …. there’s the problem & it’s rife. Media agencies housed by juniors. Would the problems at Mediacom be so dire right now?
If clients only gor past reception & the board room!

Phil g, can you elaborate on that please?. As a recruiter I am listening but to blandly say they are a REAL problem is meaningless.

I have to agree with “Older”. I am a mature aged uni student about to complete my degree and have run into the same issues. To the point in an interviewer said “the MD is your age and agency is younger”. Well to be honest, I love working amonst all generations, if only we could ALL get over the ageism – we could learn a lot from all! HIRE ME!

Rex, the recruiters I have met rarely have a really knowledgeable insight into the industry they are finding people for.

I’m not gen Y, but I couldn’t agree more with this.

I’ve worked in a number of ad agencies and almost always it’s been agencies that have the bars, baristas and an assortment of other services with the worst work life balance. Finish at 9pm? Help yourself to the bar. Need to come in early because you were stuck in meetings till late? Have a coffee or Danish, it’s on us. Don’t have time to be social outside work? Play with your colleagues on the ping pong table etc

I like my colleagues, but I have zero interest in making an agency my life and have everything revolve around it. Sadly most agencies don’t know the difference between work and life. It’s sad and it’s prevalent among the lifers in senior management. CEOs, GMs and GADs that have limited their careers to a single patch of turf are the worst offenders.

Welcome back to the planet Earth. Seniors have been raising and educating and mentoring juniors for quite a long time now. Certainly before the bronze age, and probably a lot longer than that.

Any worker, practitioner or team member who requires a range of expensive toys at work, is probably not worth his/her salt, and perhaps, in need of fine tuning.

The world has managed to work around and within the system of mixed generations and mixed gender for a very long time, and I have no idea what has happened to one, or perhaps two generations, within the last twenty odd years that seems to have skewed, or run foul of this time honoured practice.

At least a percentage of the dead are useful still, by virtue of books, plans, and recordings etc left behind; but generally speaking, the world is populated by the living, and each one has input and purpose, regardless of age.

LOL Recruiters are to blame eh Phil G. – was going to respond but nah let those words create the mirth deserved LOL Smoooooch !.

Recently I asked a talented experienced candidate what sort of culture / company are they seeking to work for next ? ” The response :

” I want a company that cares about their staff to mentor them, develop plans for their career and openly discuss challenges and show compassion ”

The final response of “show compassion” is the jewel in the retention crown – irrelevant if people are Gen X, Gen Y or heavens forbid Baby Boomers !

LOL Recruiters are to blame eh Phil G. – was going to respond but nah let those words create the mirth deserved LOL Smoooooch !.

Recently I asked a talented experienced candidate what sort of culture / company are they seeking to work for next ? ” The response :

” I want a company that cares about their staff to mentor them, develop plans for their career and openly discuss challenges and show compassion ”

The final response of “show compassion” is the jewel in the retention crown – irrelevant if people are Gen X, Gen Y or heavens forbid Baby Boomers !

Phil g, it is my belief that recruiters within the creative industry have to have a background from the creative industry, otherwise how can they speak within any authority. But I have to add we find it interesting that more and more candidates are wanting out of the creative industry and that to me is a more vital question.

@ Sue… As a former recruiter, I can understand how irrelevant and callous Phil G’s comment is. I can also understand however, where it comes from.

Recruiters are simply salespeople trying to make a buck, not the trained HR business partners they project themselves to be. They will say ANYTHING and promise ANYTHING to get that next placement – even if it is misconstruing the companies culture or value message.

No need to defend your industry, just role with it and hope your next quarter is as profitable as your current!

To Ex_Recruiter, I am not going to disagree with you, but there are good and bad recruiters within the industry. It is unfortunate that we all get tarred with the same brush. Not saying we are perfect mind!

Agree that mentoring and being valued is important.

Can’t agree about the table tennis (ping pong is a brand) as this provides physical and mental stimulation.

9 to 5 workdays?

J

@RexB there are good and bad posts on Mumbrella.

Sorry to fence sit.

Hi Ex Recruiter – anonymous in disguise LOL. May I ask your feedback on the contents of my post – especially that “compassion is the jewel in the retention crown” ? As an ex recruiter Im sure you will have tacit and valuable feedback from your salient experiences and knowledge of cultural dynamics that have an impact on staff turnover !

Right on point.

I’ve just finished an internship (which i cut early) at a large search engine (read between the lines). Free food, free massages and rooms full of ping pong tables however i hated it.

My manager barely acknowledged i was there, often flying interstate without seeing if i had work to do, never checking in on me and zero discussion of career progression or training. I found myself routinely in the office by myself as i hadn’t been invited to company wide training or events.

Since then I’ve joined a consulting company where training and development is number one priority and my work is meaningful.

I may have to buy my own coffee and a ping pong table is non existent however I’m loving every moment of work.

Goes to show that if you don’t get the foundations right then perks don’t matter. Although, now that I’m in a job i enjoy i wouldn’t be saying no to a free lunch.

What’s a 9-5 workday?

As a Gen Y employee, I find being given independence and the freedom to fail the biggest motivators.

Underestimate Gen Y at your peril. They are smarter and more career focussed that the last two generations ever were. The problem is not that we should be trying to change them, but that we should be learning from them because a some point, they will all be managing us! Many HR and line managers are stuck in the 80s and think that Gen Y should fit in with them, instead of learning new ways of managing and getting the best from them. It ends up being a cultural issue in many larger companies in particular. Tenth House did a series of three blogs last year which you can view on our website. Managers, Gen Y and Learning and Development professionals were interviewed and there were some powerful insights. Gen Y does not need a bar and pool table – they want career growth, mentoring and new ways of learning like MOOCS – if you don’t know what this is and want to see the extensive survey on MOOCs and their impact on attracting and retaining Gen Y talent. – check it out at http://www.tenthhouse.com.au/b.....-y-talent/.

I am a Gen Y (mid twenties) and recently left media agencies after 5 years. I have zero regrets and am now so much happier in my new role on the fringes.
I too bounced around between them looking for the elusive life balance that all promised but couldn’t deliver. I also desperately wanted a mentor I could look up to, not someone 7 years older than me who was still stuck in a early twenties mentality and progressed by working well with those in a similar mindset.
I agree with @Older, the ageism in agencies is rife, and it is the detriment to all.
We need to focus less on an insular version workplace ‘culture’ surrounded by things and people within a building and move towards a greater acceptance of life both within and outside the building. The people eating dinner at work because they make work the centre of their life and their home base should not be considered the hardest workers any more. Just my 2 cents.

The only people to blame is the agencies. I left a media agency after a year because my concerns were not being addressed. The only reason young people would stay in the bigger agencies is because they lack the confidence to realise they deserve better.

It’s universal for reasons beyond me in this industry that you have no work/life balance, and I’m sure any of us would trade the pointless pissups with clients and free breakfast for a chance to come in and do the hours we are contracted to do.

Further to that point, young people in the industry want to be given the training that allows us to complete our workload within those hours. That means a structured training program that is constantly updated with changes in the agency workflow and giving people the best chance of success (and a reason to hang in there). It’s not going to happen overnight, and it seems many young people across different agencies have had the same experiences of not being adequately trained and being told by senior people you will learn “as you go”, contributing to the mistakes and stress that makes most people want to leave. Of course, early on to get that training you might have to come in early or stay back late, and any young person would stay to do something mission critical for a client- but when we haven’t been given the training and senior staff are too overworked to give proper training- why the hell would you stay in what is essentially a digital sweatshop?

The MFA as highlighted by it’s response to the Mediacom debacle is a laughing stock, a way of industry heads saying that they are solving issues without any real action. Real change has to come from the heads of the agencies, not from a puff industry body that is designed to show to clients that these serious ongoing issues are being sorted out.

@Chris

What does ‘Boom’ mean?

At Heartfelt we have an age-agnostic model. By that I mean we have a digitally native unpaid intern, and the only reason a boomer like me is empoyed here is because I own the place. Our Intern – lets call her Madison – pretends to take on board my mentoring when in fact she can learn everything on Youtube and Google at 10 times the speed. I feel knowlegeable and Madison gets to printout her film scripts on the photocopier. See how it works? Madison does.

The downside to the comments of this article is that, as a Gen Y, I have a very short attention span so ceebs reading most of the above comments.

My 2 cents:
I personally need ping pong, more mentoring, and a good work/life balance amongst others..

THE KEY is..develop an environment that suits each employee & have a personalised workplace that suits your employees.
The current buzz is Customer/member, user experience; develop a customer centric solution bla bla..
Develop an EMPLOYEE Experience Workplae (copyright EXW for funsies) and your employees will absolutely feel like they’re accommodated on the basis of their individual needs.

Bill Bernbach:
“Human nature hasn’t changed for a million years. It won’t even change in the next million years. Only the superficial things have changed. It is fashionable to talk about the changing man. A communicator must be concerned with the unchanging man.”

The whole Gen Y vs Gen X vs Millenials vs Boomers thing is BS.
Used by snake oil salesmen to sell their bogus services.

Not taking a shot at the author of this piece… or not intending to.

Rather, we ALL want mentoring and not ping pong. We ALL want meaning and not wage slavery, etc.

A heuristic for spotting a charlatan: The moment they start talking about what a particular generation wants and how it’s soooo different to other generations.

Hi Tom

The piece in no way sets up that generations are different. In fact I state in the piece…

‘So… it turns out they want the same stuff that I want, and I am firmly in the Gen X cohort.’

So my point is exactly the same as yours. I’m glad we agree.

I’m a Gen Y who has worked in a large agency and I agree with the points in this article.

Senior management don’t want to help/don’t have the time to mentor the juniors, yet they expect you to look after million dollar clients without adequate training and necessary skills – and without any mistakes. This ultimately results in severe stress and high turnover.

Work life balance is a big issue in large agencies too, I agree, and I think it’s stupid that people are judged by how late they stay back at work every night, rather than the quality of their work. I often see people staying back late playing ping pong or walking around having a yarn, beer in hand – this is socially acceptable agency behavior. These are supposedly the hard workers. Whereas the silent achievers who come in at 9, do awesome work and then leave at 5 are often ostracized for not being ‘dedicated enough’.

Work is work, not a party or a night club. The sooner large agencies wake up to this, the better.

@Tom Donald. Agreed.

We have a saying up on the wall at HEARtFELT that sums the generation thing up.
If you’re young you’re screwed. If you’re old you’re screwed. So stay in the middle sweet spot. That’s not the saying– we’re keeping that to ourselves and our clients.

@ Pete (comment 36)

We have a few old school framed photo’s on our wall (insert shameless plug for company here). You know, the ones of a golf green and ‘Patience’ and a sunset and ‘Solitude’ and a baby duckling, trying to shin up bank, following mum with ‘Determination’. Blah, blah, blah, blah…

Cool Rachel. I liked your piece, so was ranting (as I’m won’t to do) but not at you.
🙂

Have to agree with Genn…
I bounced around media/then PR agencies after university finished and found that despite all the recruiter’s cries of “oh its a fantastic work/life balance, everyone loves and supports each other, not like any other agency… plus they have amazing outdoor bar” nothing ever changed. All the same, where unless you came in at 7 and left at 7 or later you weren’t recognised for anything, especially not hard work – and i did work hard, and worked efficiently..
I was clearly resented and left out socially by my also early 20’s colleagues because I made it a point to leave on time. If you’re being paid a measly media salary of $40-50k why on earth would you stay later just to prove a point?
More important things in life.
Now I’m in-house working in an amazing marketing department for a great brand and wondering why I ever bothered with agencies! Little career progression and little pay.

@Sue…. I remember using that jargon! Ahhh you have taken me back to 2007, oh the memories of long lunches, boozy evenings and writing my placements up on a whiteboard so that my equally hungry teammates could seeth with jealousy!
I too was a ‘valued HR consultant’!

I dont believe recruiters are soleley to blame but I wont fence sit – 99.9% of the time there is a heavy element of dressing mutton up as lamb. Phenomenal roles dont require recruiters – candidates know what great culture is (they dont have to be sold on it!)

Gen Y Agency kids = drink the ‘Kool Aid’ and believe that their agency is pioneering the industry whilst partaking in a social life akin to a 16 year old high school student.

Gen Y Client kids = get slammed, get the job done and can see through the smoke and mirrors of agency perks.

Client Side > Agency

@Pete Montgomery
Pete, since you’ve admitted on here you’re not mentoring me, can we have a ping pong table at shameless plug HEARtFELT?

Hey Madison,
what is it with you milleniums you do everything on social media rather than turning around asking me to my face. We did buy a ping pong table before you joined us – just haven’t asssembled yet – it’s in that back room. We put your intern desk where the table was going to go.

oh Mad, I’m not turning around just to sign that. What are y’doing on Mumbrella anyway? You dont wanna get mixed up with the trolls — they can so easily drag you into an argument about nothing and next thing you’re in the gutter with them. Know what I’m sayingt? There’s your precious mentoring for you. FYI Youre an intern–I’m not paying you do do some bloody work!

Hey Mr advertising Guru Pete Montgomery, you can pretty much stick your internship.
I don’t think you give rats about the charities we raise money for here. I think with you it’s all about award metal. Can you just pass me that stapler.

Notice how I smiled when I just passed you the stapler Maddie. That’s because there’s no staples in it and you’re gonna have to unlock the storeroom move the ping pong table box to get at the last packet. Your move, Mellennial!

I was going to staple a resignation letter onto the bald spot Pete, but since I was never technicaly employed, and was obviously never going to be. And you were never gonna give me credit for my ideas. Advertisng on pigeons for The Flying Doctor service was mine. And tagging the homelesss. What’s in this intern thing for interns?

Comon maddie, it’s not all one way. Interns get to use the photocopier printing out their 110 page dystopian, post apocalyptic film scripts. They get boasting rights: “I work in advertising”. Doesn’t hurt your personal brand when they do that “we’ll-go-around-the-room” thingie. “My names Madison, I work in the ideas business and If I was a cartoon character I’d be Dora The Explorerer” or whatever.

Before this becomes an upper case argument let’s take it somewhere the whole industry isn’t listening in.

Go over to Adnews now.

I just wanted to respond to all these allegations that recruiters are ruining the industry and are the cause of ‘selling people’ in to bad culture…

We are generally trusted partners of the business and are selected by your MDs for our abilities and to alleviate them of what many consider a tedious task.
Don’t put down our profession unless you have walked a mile in our shoes and see how hard we ‘bust a gut’ for you lot.

Rant over, hopefully one of us can help you soon 🙂

If I’d worked in an agency like yours, I wouldn’t have left the industry. I didn’t fit in where I worked because I worked hard 8.30-5.30 and got all my work done on time so I could leave on time. This didn’t go down well with management who’d spend their time arriving late, going to long lunches and gossiping in each others offices.

And this is supposedly now one of the best agencies to work…

I read though all the comments in including the satirical ones and thought to myself what a petty industry it has become. I’m in my early 50’s and had the benefit of some great mentors starting out who coached, encouraged and occasionally gave 20 something me a rollicking when I needed it.

I hoped at my current age that I would have had many opportunities to do the same and mentor a stack of other people. Unfortunately the industry makes it almost impossible to stay past 40 so its been an opportunity that wasn’t fully realised. I lasted a lot longer than that but that’s incredibly rare.

Mentoring is nothing new but it is the exception rather than the norm. We are an industry that is mainly 20 somethings creating campaigns for their aspiring 30 something selves and that’s where it ends in most agency workplaces.
Diversity of age and gender is a view to which the industry is simply blinded.

It begs the question where all the former foosball, ping pong and pool players have all gone. Is there an agency pergutory where they all disappear to pay for the sin of wanting to stick around and contribute?

I wish the 20 somethings all the best in their 3rd, 4th and 5th decades but sadly it will soon be over. Make it count while you can because before you know it you will no longer culturally fit. When will the industry change to recreate itself and build a solid future? The current churn and burn mentality is simply not sustainable.

Yes, this article raises many important issues about how junior staff are treated in many agencies. Most agencies only take the best university qualified candidates and then pay them minimum wage, less than at McDonalds. Underpaid and overworked, quickly sped up the ladder in terms of responsibility but with no remuneration to match it. When more pay is requested, it is mostly not delievered, thus forcing young talented staff out of agencies to find better paid positions elsewhere. Dreadful situation, incredibly frustrating and de-motivating. I left the business after two years (during the financial crisis) and after seeing the drawn stressed out faces of potential collegues at job interviews I finalised my decision. If I had seen some worthwhile investment or even a general care for retaining junior staff at my agency, I would have stayed.

If you don’t have mentors I believe you are in the wrong place.
I am working in a large agency for the past 8 months and my seniors including the MD has 5 minutes for everyone around, NGEN is encouraged and each staff member is assigned a mentor within the agency who they can talk to at any time (at the mentor’s convenience).
The pay isn’t great and sometimes the hours are tough but the relationships and perks such as training, parties and working with like-minded people is why I stay. Maybe the issue is with the agency or the level of expectations and motivations of the employee.