Using Tinder addiction to explain the millennial skills gap
After discovering how fearful her millennial colleagues were of real life rejection, denstu X head of planning Sam Cousins began to think about how their obsession with swiping right could hold the answer to the media industry's skills gap.
I was out one night with a group of single women from my workplace all in their mid to late 20s and I was struck by their lack of confidence when it came to communicating with guys they were interested in.
Their expectations were very high of the type of guy they were looking for. But, at the same time they feared any sort of real life rejection. Hence they reverted to their dating apps on their phone or the conversation shifted to sharing their Tinder experiences. All the time whilst actually in a bar with real human people in…
As the ‘swipe right generation’, they are too used to hiding behind technology.
Shortly after, I sat through the latest industry presentation from Media i on sentiment in our market and agency results. I started to see a clear link between how millennials grade their workplace and they cope in the real world.
I know it’s not rocket science, and if you Google the swipe right generation, there are many articles on this – especially around the future of recruitment.
Nonetheless, it’s a pertinent problem when you consider the skills shortage we’re currently experiencing in our industry.
My basic take-out from the Media i survey was that at the one to three year tenure level in agencies, millennials are unhappy in their jobs. And they’re not afraid to text, tweet, WhatsApp and Facebook about it.
A recent PWC research study stated that by 2020, 50% of the global workforce will be millennials. Yet we haven’t really figured out how to recruit, inspire, retain or motivate them in our industry.
We haven’t quite figured out how to change with millennials – to retain them, inspire them and grow them in our business.
Simon Sinek, a motivational speaker, talked about millennials in an interview with Inside Quest. He talked about four key reasons that this generation are called lazy, entitled and narcissistic, and why leaders in the corporate world have such a tough time managing them.
He named four consistent reasons that they behave the way they do:
- Parenting. Growing up, millennials had their parents helicoptering and managing all areas of their lives and telling them they can be everything and anything that they want to be, but yet not teaching them the hard work, disappointment and resilience required to get there.
- Technology. They have grown up with a social media addiction checking every like and notification 24 hours a day. Depending on this for a dopamine high, at the sacrifice of real and human interactions. Therefore ill equipping them for work pressures and rejection in the real world.
- Impatience. If you can watch the entire series in one night on Netflix why do you need to wait for anything in this world? They don’t understand the patience needed to truly find job satisfaction. (And relationships).
- Struggling in the work environment. The current corporate environment does not help millennials’ needs for constant and instant gratification.
So where does that leave us?
In the same survey mentioned above, PWC stated that 80% of millennials consider company culture and their fit into the business as most important to them. It also explains that their behaviour has been shaped by the GFC; therefore putting more emphasis on their personal needs than those of the organisations that they work for.
They want to rise quickly through the ranks in organisations that don’t have rigid structures. And if their requirements aren’t met, they move on quickly. They want a flexible approach to work and to feel that their work is contributing towards something. If this is the case, we need to focus more on ‘One on one coaching’, helping them be more creative, building their confidence, and enabling their work / life balance.
Then, maybe, we can achieve the dream of attracting top talent and being able to take our pick of them.
And maybe we can all go out for a drink together without looking at our phones, and actually talk.
Sam Cousins is national head of planning at denstu X.
Opinions are like assholes; everyone has one
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Why take Simon Sinek’s word for it? The youth have always been told they’re not made like they used to.
“They have trouble making decisions. They would rather hike in the Himalayas than climb a corporate ladder. They have few heroes, no anthems, no style to call their own. They crave entertainment, but their attention span is as short as one zap of a TV dial.” -Time magazine, 2001
“The traditional yearning for a benevolent employer who can provide a job for life also seems to be on the wane… In particular, they want to avoid ‘low-level jobs that aren’t keeping them intellectually challenged.” -Financial Times, 1995
“It’s an irony, but so many of us are a cautious, nervous, conservative crew that some of the elders who five years ago feared that we might come trooping home full of foreign radical ideas are now afraid that the opposite might be too true, and that we could be lacking some of the old American gambling spirit and enterprise.” -Life Magazine, 1950
“Never has youth been exposed to such dangers of both perversion and arrest as in our own land and day. Increasing urban life with its temptations, prematurities, sedentary occupations, and passive stimuli just when an active life is most needed, early emancipation and a lessening sense for both duty and discipline, the haste to know and do all befitting man’s estate before its time, the mad rush for sudden wealth and the reckless fashions set by its gilded youth–all these lack some of the regulatives they still have in older lands with more conservative conditions.” -G. Stanley Hall, 1904
“The free access which many young people have to romances, novels, and plays has poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising youth; and prevented others from improving their minds in useful knowledge. Parents take care to feed their children with wholesome diet; and yet how unconcerned about the provision for the mind, whether they are furnished with salutary food, or with trash, chaff, or poison?” -Enos Hitchcock, 1790
“[Young people] are high-minded because they have not yet been humbled by life, nor have they experienced the force of circumstances. They think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it.” -Aris-freakin’-totle, 4th Century BC
You’re not talking about millennials. You’re talking about young people, regardless of era.
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Is it any wonder agencies are struggling to retain talent in the 1-3 year experience bracket when they’re asked to work increasingly ridiculous hours for a pittance?
I left one of the big media agencies 6 months ago after 3 years in the industry and I’ll never look back – I’ve gone from regular 12-14 hour days to pretty much 9-5 whilst seeing a 50% increase in salary. Who would want to stay in agency land when that’s the alternative!?!?
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Classic old person generalising young people article
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Rather than the employer considering their own role in the problem….nah its Tinder
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I did the same thing, global are not all they are made out to be. They are pretty good at distracting you with drinks and fun stuff though.
When i asked for a pay rise or an opportunity to progress after being there 2.5 years and earning <$50k, working 12 hour days they said "we supplement your income by giving you working opportunities that you wouldn't get anywhere else" i can't pay rent with that.
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I’m a millennial and I’ve been working full time for 5 or 6 years.
Whenever I read things about how all millennials are lazy, entitled, want to rise quickly regardless of skill, etc etc, I can only think about the supposedly “wise” management teams above us who seem totally uninterested in anything but playing golf.
My partner works at a company that just did a PR event where the flowers alone – the FLOWERS – cost $20,000. This event netted one mention in a caption on the Daily Mail, and 3 hits to the website.
Yet this same management team think their staff are entitled when they ask for a pay rise.
So forgive me if I roll my eyes when older generations act like they know everything. Most millennials would be happy with a fair go.
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Old people are coring bunts.
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There is definitely a skill gap that’s only getting wider due to the increasing use of technology in business, and that skill, or lack there of, is communication. It baffles me how many young agency folk are afraid to have a real conversation, either face to face or over the phone. They’d rather screen phone calls, and send emails back and forth for days, for tasks that could be completed with one simple call.
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Nothing changes if nothing changes.
If swipe right = youthful optimism, and hide behind technology = fear of rejection, then doesn’t appear to me anything is different, in a generational sense.
Human’s have not fundamentally changed. We are all scared, we all want more, we all pine for a better day, we all want stuff now. How we regulate our emotions is a product of time. Commentary on it, is a product of our times.
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I really enjoyed your post!
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I am a little embarrassed that i had to use cryptic clues to find you, maybe you can find me.
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