THAT'S 'MS. GAL,' TO YOU Labor statistics show younger women leading men in management positions.  The ceiling may be glass, but her office is bigger.

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Oh, grow up!

In this story: Great expectations Loathing loyalty Management malaise RELATED STORIES, SITES

By Larry Keller
CNN.com/career Senior Writer

(CNN) -- A robust economy and nearly full employment -- these should be halcyon days for American workers, right?

Well, not entirely. There's a lingering tension in the workplace that, like a tenacious telemarketer, just won't go away. Call it generational jitters.

"There are a lot of baby boomers -- and it's not across the board -- who feel disadvantaged relative to Gen-Xers, given their stamina, the energy and the comfort level with technology." That's Neil Stroul, 50, an organizational psychologist in McLean, Virginia. He studies on-the-job tensions between the two age groups.

"The whole electronic universe is more of a water that the X-ers are suited to swim in, than the boomers."

Marilyn Vernon, chief of management programs with the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, says she sees this among the 150 employees at that government agency. It provides training, education and research for federal-court workers.

"This younger person brings skills they don't have," she says. "Some of it is just fear by the senior people that the new skills are going to make them look bad in terms of computer and Internet savvy. Most people can use the Internet some and use e-mail, but these kids can set up Web pages and other things.

"The feeling among older workers is, 'I'm not looking as indispensable to this organization as I did before."'

Stroul says that on the flip side of this flap, Generation X-ers often see their boomer co-workers as out of step, unresponsive to their needs and zealously guarding their office turf.

Great expectations

This age division isn't just about the younger employees' generally superior technology skills. Their attitudes can make older workers wary, too. Stroul and others say Generation X workers want instant perks and promotions, and if they don't get them, they'll look elsewhere.

Vernon, who is 53, says, "Some of these younger folks push for what the older folks see as entitlements and get them, like right now.

"The older folks say, 'I had to wait all those years for the parking space, the comp time or flex time. These younger people walk in the door and demand it as a condition of employment.' If managers want them badly enough, they'll give it."

Stroul says Generation X members on the whole aren't any more ambitious or impatient than boomers were at the same age. "What's different now is the law of supply and demand. There is a talent war going on."

Stan Kantor, 40, is one of that war's combatants. He's president of Gnossos Software in Washington. Kantor says a new hire fresh out of school typically moves on to another job within two years.

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"I would like the new economy to tank," he says, "because then it will reduce the competitive recruiting pressures."

Kantor has offered stock options to select employees -- whom he calls associates -- in an effort to hold on to workers longer. "To very few of them did the concept have any relevance," he says. "They just couldn't fathom the concept that they may be at the same company five years from now."

He says he blames this, in part, on many younger workers' misguided notions that they can become millionaires after working at dot-coms for a year. A recent survey by KPMG International found that 74 percent of college seniors expect to become millionaires.

Loathing loyalty

Critics of Generation X workers say they have no loyalty to their employers.

"The job market is tight, but we get tons of resumes," Kantor says. He says he hires one out of 100 applicants. But while that deluge of job seekers in a tight market may suggest a lot of job hopping, Kantor says he doesn't think lack of loyalty started with Generation X.

He says he thinks it began in the 1960s when young people -- many of them today's boomers -- began to mistrust authority and institutions. Generation X-ers, he says, had reasons to be cynical about employers. As children, many saw their parents lose jobs during the downsizing era.

Stroul argues that Generation X doesn't lack loyalty. He says it's just a different sort of loyalty. "What there isn't in this generation is institutional loyalty to an employer for the long term." But, he adds, they're loyal to a company with a charismatic leader or a great mission.

Stroul says managers who are members of the boomer generation must shoulder some of the blame for the readiness of Generation X workers to move from one job to another.

"The boomers have already forgotten what it's like to be young and in that position," he says. "They're not very gracious about making room at the table for the X-ers' voices to be heard. I don't see enough being done to pave the way for that next generation. Now that we're in our middle adulthood, we're hanging on every bit as much as earlier generations."

Management malaise

These values, beliefs and attitudes that Generation X workers brings to the marketplace pose special challenges to boomer managers.

Stroul says Generation X workers frequently think they should be judged on the quality, not quantity of their work, while many older managers were trained to evaluate work in more quantitative ways.

MESSAGE BOARD •  Feeling discriminated against because of your age? Are there many or not many candles on your birthday cake?

X-FILES A Gen-Xer pulls no punches as she talks about her somewhat-elders. "I think my generation might appreciate technology more. We work smarter."  More fightin' words

Generation X employees "really prefer less supervision," Vernon says. "I think in general if you can say, 'Here's what I want' -- and be fairly clear about the expected outcome -- they prefer to take the ball and run with it and do it the way they see fit."

At Gnossos, Kantor sets aside one day every quarter for employees to attend in-house training sessions and seminars. He also has organized employee days at the beach and the mountains. Every Friday, he provides a catered breakfast and he reimburses his workers for all work-related books they purchase and read.

These benefits are popular, Kantor says. But he adds that he's at a loss to know how he can change what he perceives as the short attention span of his Generation X workers. They make up about 80 percent of his staff of 20 to 25 people.

He says most of his younger staffers don't have the patience for a project that takes time to develop. "The whole dot-com phenomenon leads everyone to take this get-rich-quick concept, or think they can build something significant in six months. That's not the way the real world works."

Says Vernon: "I think you have to connect with them and find out what's truly motivating and meaningful to them in terms of their growth and development. You have to keep the dialogue open constantly."

She, Kantor and Stroul say that providing training to Generation X employees is one key to keeping them happy.

"Whatever they learn," Vernon says, "they parlay into a new job and don't think twice about it." Still, she says, training is often a good investment.

"I'd rather have an outstanding person for a couple of years, than have somebody forever who just doesn't contribute that much."

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics figures indicate that young women are leading their male counterparts in management positions.
That's 'Ms. Gal' to you, buddy.

GenX preps for retirement
February 29, 2000
Managing Generation X
April 20, 1999

Federal Judicial Center
Gnossos Software
KPMG

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