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DEFINING MANAGEMENT CHARACTERISTICS: SHAKING IT UP

“To be nobody but yourself in a world that’s doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Never stop fighting.

—e.e. cummings

How will you rewrite the rules of management? How will you lead your team as a millennial? What will be different, and importantly, what are the secrets to success? What legacy will you leave, and how can you ensure it is positive and powerful?

You have heard a lot about the different generations, and you are aware of the ways that your generation can be perceived. This background and knowledge base will help you immensely as you begin managing in a multigenerational workforce. Now let’s take a glimpse at how your generation will manage.

Our team at JB Training Solutions interviewed and talked with hundreds of millennials, and we work with thousands of millennials every year. In our conversations, we heard a few themes that rang true for the majority of millennials. Although there always will be exceptions, there were a few adjectives and attributes that immediately came to the forefront during our interviews and conversations.

For millennial managers, work isn’t just work—it’s an extension of themselves. You bring your values to the workforce, and some of those principles fly in the face of the “way business has always been done.” To make your mark, you are pushing for more collaboration, more technology, more fun, and more flexibility at work. Your values and principles will steer you, and you will bring these attributes to your management role to build a great team, solid relationships, and a rewarding environment.

After speaking with thousands of millennial managers, a few core principles jumped out. The main characteristics that will define your management style are collaborative, flexible, transparent, casual, and balanced. These concepts will drive your decisions, and they truly set your generation apart as managers.

To help you see how this plays out in your management role, this section will explore each concept individually. Although some of these attributes have been touched upon already, this chapter will discuss how they tie directly to being a manager. As you learn about each attribute, think how you can use these ideas and values to propel your path toward leadership.

COLLABORATIVE: WE’RE IN THIS TOGETHER

When interviewing millennial managers, we heard time and time again that you enjoy working together. Renee Oehlerking, a millennial manager at a public relations agency, said she wants to build a strong team environment where “we float together and sink together.” For this millennial manager, her team could get through anything—the good and the bad—if everyone joined forces and stuck together. This quotation also capitalizes on the idea that millennials don’t mind hardships if they’re trucking through it as a team. Lessons can be learned and fun can even be had even when “sinking together.” It’s all about the team, and it’s all about the people. Millennial managers want to like the people on their teams—and they want the people on their teams to like them as managers. “If I’m spending eight to ten hours with someone every day, I want to get along with that person,” said Oehlerking.

Millennial managers enjoy hearing the opinions of their teams and working together to solve problems. It’s about the partnership, collaboration, and relationships. You value relationships, and one of the things you take pride in is being able to build a relationship with your employees. Many millennial managers don’t even like to call their direct reports their reports or subordinates because they want everyone to feel like equals. We heard numerous quotations about how millennial managers don’t want to be leaders who just issue orders; they want every person’s voice to be heard.

Maybe in an effort to distance yourself from older generations or to echo the way you were raised in a family where everyone had equal say, you have a fear of being seen as an authoritative figure who barks out commands. In our interviews, millennials said that they dislike when their managers do that to them, so they want to make sure they’re not doing that with their teams. You like when your manager listens to your ideas and asks for your opinion, so you, in turn, want to provide that for your team. You appreciate when you have a voice, so you choose to give that to your team. You aim for everyone to feel like they have a say and a part. This is in sharp contrast to the “command-and-control” management style of previous generations.

“Building a relationship” with your team is one of the accomplishments millennial managers are most proud of. You take the time to get to know your employees and share advice, and you give everyone a voice. No one is better than anyone else, including yourself—the leader.

For millennials, the social and collaborative piece is one of the most rewarding aspects of work. Why work on something alone when you can have partners pooling ideas and resources? Can’t a diverse group with an assortment of ideas come up with a better solution than the lone leader? Isn’t it more rewarding if everyone is working together on projects? Millennial managers think so.

Here are a few anecdotes that we heard from millennial managers we interviewed:

I love the camaraderie.

There might be some rough days, but we pull together and power through it.

I’m less about making the decision from the top. I like to get all the opinions on the table.

We’re in this together.

I don’t want to make the decision for them.

I personally want a voice, so I want to give them a voice.

My favorite part of managing is watching people grow and be successful.

I take pride in the personal relationships I build. I feel people have more buy-in that way.

I enjoy creating a culture of sharing.

I’m very dialogue friendly. I like to consider everyone’s ideas and incorporate them.

I genuinely care about the people on my team. I want to see them do well.

It has been proven that diverse groups working well together can develop more creative solutions than when individuals work on a problem solo. The book, Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, by Liz Wiseman, highlights the ineffectiveness of “Diminishers”—leaders who issue orders and stifle creativity by thinking their own ideas are best.^[1] Millennials seem to have an innate predisposition toward being a “Multiplier”—a leader who encourages others’ opinions, empowers people, and fosters the intelligence of those around them. Numerous millennial managers we interviewed showed wisdom beyond their years by saying that they know they have succeeded when someone on their team is promoted. Your generation carries a collaborative spirit and a willingness to foster the growth and development of your team members.

Now there can be a downside to any asset in extreme, and you will learn more about these ideas in our management section. I will cover some of the pitfalls of collaboration when there is a lack of ownership or a deferment in decision making. As a millennial manager, you should be aware that some of the Xers and boomers you manage likely won’t be as excited about doing everything as a team. Of course, your millennial team members love this bias toward teamwork, but other generations are more accustomed to having a traditional leader and a hierarchy.

Your Xer employee may be thinking, “Please, please, just leave me alone to work! I can’t take any more of this feel-good togetherness stuff!” When talking to Brian, a Xer working at a national retail store, he said his millennial manager struggles with moving from hearing opinions and ideas to making a decision and taking action. Brian recalls one meeting where the team talked and talked and talked, and the millennial manager encouraged a great conversation. However, the meeting wrapped up, and a decision had not been made. From Brian’s perspective, the millennial manager was afraid to put her stick in the ground and make a decision; her fear of making the wrong decision or hurting people’s feelings extended the discussion and situation much longer than it should have been. In upcoming chapters, you will learn how to walk this fine line and find a successful balance between collaboration and decision making.

On a whole, your collaborative spirit will serve you well to keep your people engaged and moving toward a common goal. Engaged employees are more productive, and employees are more likely to feel engaged if they feel like they are part of a team. In fact, take a look at these questions from Gallup’s Employee Engagement Survey.² If you answer yes to its 12 questions, you likely are an engaged employee. Here are five of the twelve questions that tend to favor a manager who encourages collaboration:

Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person?

Is there someone at work who encourages your development?

At work, do your opinions seem to count?

Do you have a best friend at work?

In the last year, have you had opportunities to learn and grow?

Your generation is known to care about your team members, encourage their growth, and hear their opinions. Even as you move through the ranks to take on larger leadership roles, you will uphold your value of teamwork and working together.

FLEXIBLE: OPEN TO HOW THE JOB GETS DONE

Millennials crave flexibility for themselves, and they are willing to give flexibility to employees. When talking with millennial managers, they stressed the importance of flexibility not only in work schedules, but also in what work is done and how it gets done.

You know that work can’t be confined to 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, so you’re less concerned about the “where” or the “when” and more concerned about the quality of the final deliverable. Maybe an individual works better later in the day, or they have personal appointments, or they work from home because they have a long commute. Millennial managers are very open to these ideas. With technological advancements, you can tune into the office anytime or anywhere. If a millennial needs to leave early on Friday, he can just finish up his project Sunday evening. Millennials question, “If they know what the deliverables are, why should I regulate how they work best?”

Julie, a millennial manager at a global bank, sets the standard for flexibility by working out over her lunch break. She says that she knows that she works hard and is going above and beyond in her job. She often works late nights and puts in long weekends when there is a systems change. In this regard, she knows that it’s okay to take an hour or even slightly over an hour running and lifting weights at lunch. She says this flexibility gives her the balance that she needs, and she trusts her direct report to do the same.

As an employee, millennials value flexibility, and they will instill this culture as managers. For millennials, there aren’t hard and fast rules and policies for everything. There can always be an exception or a personal situation that warrants a targeted solution. Rules for the sake of rules are the bane of millennials’ existence! Rules can and should be questioned, according to millennials. Now remember, millennials are more conventional, so if the rules make sense and if they stand up to a line of questions, then they will follow them.

Case in point, there is an upbeat Chicago office building that is full of millennial employees. Most of the companies represented in the building are young and entrepreneurial, and they attract tech-savvy millennials. The security guards in this building say that they find themselves constantly explaining the rules after a myriad of questions. “Why can’t a group of us have an impromptu meeting in the hall? Why can’t I play my guitar in the stairwell? Do I really have to put my friends on the security list? Can’t you be a little more flexible?,” millennial employees ask. The rigid nature of the experienced security guards contrasts with the flexible, go-with-the-flow approach of millennials. If a reasonable answer or solution can be reached, then millennials don’t have a problem bending the rule or changing it, and now that millennials are in management positions, they have more authority to implement these ideas and instill this culture.

Trust goes hand in hand with this idea of flexibility, and millennial managers, as a generalization, are a trusting group. You believe that people will do what they say they will do, and you trust that employees are bright and committed enough to get the job done. Maybe because boomers and Xers didn’t go through their career with as many flexible options, they struggle more with giving their employees flexibility. “Will they actually be working or just goofing around?,” the boomer boss asks himself. Boomers also put a lot of emphasis on face time and coming into the office, so they’re skeptical of this new idea of “working from home.”

Lindsey Dortsen, a millennial manager at Discover Financial Services, talked about how flexible she is with her employee who also is teaching college business courses. This employee changes his schedule so that he works from 6:30 AM to 3:00 PM, which allows him to support his interest in teaching. Lindsey said she was happy to accommodate this flex schedule as often as the workload allows, which she says is 90 percent of the time. There is a genuine trust she is placing with this employee, so he can foster an outside activity. Millennial managers can help bridge the gap between the structured work style of senior leaders and the looser approach of their peers.

For example, Kate, a millennial manager at an HR consulting firm, stresses the importance of balance between working from home and being in the office. Kate shares, “I don’t mind working from home from time to time when my schedule calls for it, but I do believe you should be in the office, face-to-face on a pretty regular basis. I think seeing people face-to-face makes a big difference and, sometimes, my millennial employees don’t understand that.” She goes on to say that working from home too much can delay individuals’ career development; they can miss out on seeing how things are done and getting to know people. Kate has openness for new ways of doing business, yet she still respects the strengths of the more traditional management structures. Successful millennial managers will help bridge these gaps.

Millennials are also flexible in their management style—they can decide as they go along. Since your lives are always changing, you can “roll with the punches” as change hits your team and work environment. This adaptability seems to be ingrained in your hard drive and makes you more nimble and open to change. When it came to the idea of flexibility, here are a few anecdotes we heard from millennial managers:

I’m open to how the job gets done—as long as the deliverables are there.

Everyone on my team is smart and dedicated. We’re incredibly tech driven, so people are always available wherever they are.

I use to be very concerned with a hard start time, but I realized how important flex hours were to my team, and I knew that wasn’t where I needed to be wasting my energy.

Flexibility is incredibly important. Sometimes, it has been looked at as a benefit in the past. Now, it is more of the status quo.

I manage a team in a call center, so I don’t have the privilege of being flexible with hours and those kinds of things, but I try to keep my expectations flexible and remain open to new ideas.

I think it’s important to be flexible with different people and personalities, even with time and work styles.

Life happens. It’s nice when I can show I get that. If appointments come up, no problem. I always tell them that I know they will get their work done.

When it comes to flexibility, you have to break people’s stereotypes—being flexible is perceived as bending the rules. Sometimes, there is a sense or pressure to be there in person, and you feel that you have to justify yourself. If our company has flexible policies, then absolutely, we should use them!

Millennial managers are bringing trust paired with flexibility to their role. Again, these are two key attributes that foster highly engaged employees. This open mind toward flexibility will help millennials thrive and excel in a more diverse and virtual workplace and global economy.

TRANSPARENT: BEING “IN THE KNOW”

“What you see is what you get.” The millennial manager is more transparent than previous generations. Millennials say that they feel like some senior leaders cloak the board room and executive decisions in secrecy, and they do not like the idea that the state of the company is shielded from employees. Millennials say, if you want my team to be part of the solution, then I think they deserve to know the full story. Millennials ask, “Wouldn’t that help people make better decisions if they can see the whole picture?” They want companies and leaders to be transparent in their strategies and values; according to millennials, it helps build trust and respect.

This push for workplace transparency stems from their need to know “why?” and, importantly, the transparency that social media brings to the lives of millennials. From where they are vacationing to what they are having for breakfast, millennials are accustomed to letting the world know through the World Wide Web what they are doing. You tweet your updates and post pictures from your weekend, the family holiday, and your work trip. In the eyes of older generations, there doesn’t seem to be much of a filter when it comes to putting things out there. In fact, 40 percent of millennials think that blogging about workplace issues is acceptable, compared to 28 percent of boomers.³

Millennials often take the view “I am who I am.” This transparency in their personal lives has them in turn expecting that from their work life and from their employer. They look at senior leadership and think, Why all the secrecy? Why all the “privacy settings”?. Shouldn’t you be proud to put who we are and what we stand for as a company out there?

As managers, millennials will break through this facade and forge a more transparent path, but some millennial managers say they still need to know when to draw the line.

Christie Yerks, a millennial manager at a technology company, recognizes, “I feel the responsibility to be professional, so I try to live up to that level of ‘there’s a time and place to openly share information and your opinion’ with trusted people. For me, that’s my manager. But I don’t know that it is okay for me to be 100 percent transparent with direct reports because I don’t want to overly influence their experience.” Millennial managers encourage transparency and try to bridge the gap between a more closed, senior C-suite and the overshare tendencies of their millennial peers. Here are a few anecdotes we heard from millennial managers:

I want my team to believe in the company and the end result.

A lot of the tools we grew up with make people more vocal about how they feel about things. Through things like Facebook and Twitter, we are much more open to share our feelings because it’s not just work, it’s our personal work too.

I want them to be proud of our product and know what they’re supporting.

I’m comfortable with my employees and I tell them what I can, and if I can’t, I tell them that too.

I feel like the relationship I have with my employees has never been authoritative. I’ve never believed in scaring your people into working. I give context as to why we are doing what we are doing and why expectations are what they are.

I know managers who work with me see transparency and not standoffishness.

Being “in the know” helps people feel more connected.

As a millennial manager, you will share the full story with your team because you would want to know the full story. With the significant role of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest and the 24-hour news cycle, millennials are receiving and sharing information, ideas, and perspectives throughout the day. They’re accustomed to this constant flow of information and, at work, they think it should be no different.

A millennial manager who supervised twenty employees shared how she became more transparent as a manager and how that aids in her team’s growth. She stated, “I think when I first stepped into the management role, I wasn’t transparent enough because I was learning a lot of both roles. Now that I know what’s going on, I like to relay business decisions that I think will be beneficial for them to know from a growth standpoint. Obviously, there’s some confidentiality, but I do try to share information that I can with them, even if it’s not directly related to their role.”

Millennials think it’s respectful and necessary to share. Share, share, share. Transparency can contribute to higher engagement by trusting employees with knowledge and allowing them the freedom to solve problems, knowing the entire challenge. In Training + Development magazine,⁴ Stephanie Castellano writes, “Building trust is not merely the workplace trend du jour. High-trust organizations are full of engaged employees who help to drive bottom-line results.” Castellano continues, “Trust in the workplace these days is all about transparency, predictability, consistency, and collaboration.” Millennial managers can increase the feelings of trust, connection, and engagement and drive bottom-line results by serving as a transparent leader.

Of course, there is a flip-side of the “over-share” that could hurt teams. You will learn more about watching the “over-share” as a manager, but in general, millennials will forge a strong path toward transparent leadership.

CASUAL: JUST BE YOURSELF

Gone are the days of suits and ties and panty hose. It’s time to get real and be casual. Wahoo! Millennials are taking a stand and not backing down on this one—my work is not affected by my attire. And the casual tone isn’t simply limited to clothes; it extends to their attitude, the way they work, and the way they talk and interact as professionals.

A great story to showcase this phenomenon took place at a reception in Chicago, where Crain’s Chicago Business was honoring “40 under 40”—the forty individuals who have achieved so much under the young age of forty. The banquet to honor these individuals was held at the Union League Club, one of Chicago’s “oldest and finest establishments”—an establishment with a dress code that aligns more with traditionalists and boomers and where jeans are not allowed. A young award winner showed up to the banquet in jeans—and the Union League promptly gave him a pair of slacks to wear for the night. The honoree accepted his award in someone else’s pants. The President of the Union League assured, “It’s not that we’re stodgy. We just have standards.”⁵

Likewise, let’s talk about the infamous hoodie recognized around the world. You know the one, it is faded black (or navy?), a little frumpy, and is touted by one of the world’s richest and most notable millennials, Mark Zuckerberg. You can argue that Zuckerberg is extremely successful and that if he can build a network one billion people strong, who cares what he wears. However, you could see the clash among the generations and working styles that took over the headlines on blogs and news outlets as Facebook went public:

Zuckerberg’s hoodie rankles Wall Street

Is Mark Zuckerberg in over his hoodie?

Zuckerberg’s Hoodie a ’Mark of Immaturity,’ Analyst Says

Mark Zuckerberg wears hoodie to Facebook investor meetings

Doubts Intensify About Zuckerberg’s Role as Facebook CEO

You are witnessing the butting of heads by millennials and boomers firsthand! And what happened as soon as Facebook’s stock began to plummet? Headlines read, Experts call for inexperienced Zuckerberg to step down as Facebook’s CEO.⁶ Investors and older generations start to think, well, Zuckerberg is giving me the perception that he is immature and, now, I have the business results to prove it. On the flip side, you can see Zuckerberg’s perspective. I started this company in my dorm room with this little ol’ hoodie, and I’m not going to put on a suit and try to be someone that I’m not. It’s obvious that there is a lack of understanding on both sides.

Some people may find wearing jeans or hoodies disrespectful, but millennials hardly think twice about it. Millennials have a tough time understanding how attire affects the ideas coming from their heads or how it hinders getting their work done. Think about college again. If you showed up to take an exam in pink pajama pants, did it affect your grade on the test? No way. Millennials carry this perspective to the workplace where they want to hang on to their individuality and self-expression. As millennials become the majority in our workplaces, expect to see more and more casual environments. Especially as millennials enter management roles, they will instill a more casual and laid-back atmosphere.

In addition to attire, millennials are much more casual in the way that they do business. As mentioned, you don’t adhere to a strict hierarchy, so business is conducted much more casually where ideas and strategies can come from anywhere. Business meetings start with how the weekend went instead of strictly following Six Sigma rules. You blur the lines, so work is not just work and play is not just play. Work and play come together to create a much more casual scene where it’s okay to listen to your headphones, answer your cell phone, play Words With Friends during breaks, or chitchat with the CEO at work. Millennials aren’t stiff and professional outside of work, so why should they be that way at work?

U get a bad rap 4 UR communication SKILLZ! Time and time again, I hear from senior leaders, “Please, please, help them write more professionally!” Millennials think, I text my friends and parents, why can’t I text my boss or our client? Does it really matter if I send off a quick e-mail with no capital letters? If I call my friend “dude,” why can’t I call my colleagues “dude”?

Nell Madigan, Associate Dean, School of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois, asserts that millennials tend to be “very casual and candid and can improve their poise. Although some of that will come as they get older, millennials will always be less formal and more candid.”

A millennial manager who oversees three millennials on a customer design team reveals how your generation is bridging the gap between the more traditional, formal management style and the casual approach of millennials. She explains, “I knew I needed to be more formal at the beginning to show people I was serious. There’s this balance where at the beginning you are aware of the perceptions working against you, so I wasn’t as laid-back. Once I earned the credibility, I was more casual. It was probably a month and a half into the process.” Millennials will lead a more casual workplace, but they also are showing that they think there is a time, place, and audience for everything. Here are a few more ideas we heard from millennial managers:

Casual dress attire and pushing for jean Fridays is a passionate topic. To me, I understand that can be energizing to a workforce, but there is a time and a place.

Managers who are older are more likely to know the documented process and follow the rules more so. Millennials may be more apt to challenge, bend, or take a creative approach.

Millennial managers can be more casual in terms of appearance and language, but that doesn’t translate to career outtake or how seriously we take our careers.

I think we are more casual in the sense of conversation, writing skills, and appearance. I find that recent graduates are even much more casual and less appropriate.

There’s the tendency to feel like you always need to be working. I encourage her [my employee] to leave at reasonable hours. I encourage her to walk away from her desk if she’s overwhelmed. I’ll write her a card when I know she’s stressed.

I try to keep open lines of communication like pulling people aside and having a relationship outside of the director/subordinate roles. If you can’t have normal conversations, it is uncomfortable for everybody.

I think you should just be yourself at work. You shouldn’t have to put on this fake or overly professional persona.

Millennial managers wanted to stress that the “casualness” of the generation isn’t necessarily due to a lack of respect or interest. For millennials who text constantly, sending a “text-speak” e-mail doesn’t seem like that serious of an issue. Millennials don’t show as much reverence to authority because they view the workplace as more of a network rather than a hierarchy. Even though other generations would see this as far too casual, for millennials, “Hey!” is a perfectly polite and acceptable way to start an e-mail or greet an executive. It doesn’t mean you don’t care. Zuckerberg wearing a hoodie does not mean he doesn’t take the situation seriously. He simply does not see his external apparel as a reflection of his internal mindset. With the blurring of work and life, millennials are bringing a more casual way of dressing, writing, communicating, and managing to the workspace.

BALANCED: SUCCESSFUL AT LIFE AS A WHOLE

“Work/life balance was always the elephant in the room. The reality is that now, we are talking about it and expect it,” says millennial manager Amelia Forczak. Rare is the millennial who jumps at the opportunity to work from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM. Millennials are not workaholics, and there is not a clear boundary between work and life. Leading a balanced life is not something that millennials aim for; rather, it’s ingrained in them. Furthermore, for millennials, it’s more of work/life integration and less about a balance. With a balance, work is on one side and life is on the other side. Millennials see work and life as more of a medley and integration that ebbs and flows in response to needs at work or needs outside of work from week to week.

In our interviews with millennial managers, we often heard that millennials want to succeed in work AND outside of work. One manager said that she wanted her legacy as a manager to be that she was “successful at life”—not that she was just an amazing manager. Millennials are much more likely to look at their lives as a whole. It’s not as though work only happens between the hours of nine to five. Millennials may spend the first few minutes catching up on social media while they are at the office, but they may answer a few e-mails in the evening or over the weekend.

Friends, family, and extracurriculars are very important to your generation. As we have established, you grew up living a highly programmed life, and you enjoy the fulfillment and “busy-ness” that it brings. More and more, companies are incorporating these flexible practices to foster a balanced environment.

For example, Best Buy has instilled the ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) program, where work hours are more flexible and employees are graded only on results. Centro, a media logistics company, offers its employees “Ferris Bueller” days. In addition to vacation and holidays, each employee receives ten personal days with no questions asked. Centro even grants a three-week paid sabbatical after four years of service to give their employees some time to explore an interest, travel, or just relax and reinvigorate with family. With an employee population comprised mostly of millennials and numerous millennial managers, Centro is speaking the language of its employee base.

Furthermore, millennial managers encourage their people to lead balanced lives as well. You have seen what happened to your burnt-out parents and senior leaders. Your generation doesn’t see work as your defining feature, and you have stated that you’re not going to sacrifice everything for work. Here are a few anecdotes we hear from millennials:

I want to be known for working hard and playing hard.

I love that I have things outside of work that make me happy. I think it’s sad when all you have is work.

I want work to be a place that I want to go to when I wake up.

I plan on getting married and having kids down the road, and that’s what I want. I want to succeed at both work and life.

I genuinely care about the people on my team. I want them to have work/life balance.

It’s unrealistic to expect anyone to put their job before their families or their own personal well-being. Of course it is important to do your best work, but if you get completely burnt out, it isn’t healthy.

I would never ask for people to do anything that I found to be unreasonable-working on a Saturday or calling when they’re off.

This made me think of the “get a lot, take a little” approach. You’ll get more out of everyone if people are happy, and this is connected to flexibility. Sometimes, you need a break outside of work to be able to think the most clearly.

I offer work/life balance to my team by reiterating that I don’t want them to work while they are on vacation. One of my colleagues was about to take a three-week honeymoon, and he told the team he was going to check his e-mail every day. We were like no, don’t do that’!

This is where a lot of millennials and older generations hit heads. Boomers are a “work til you die” generation, and they believe in paying your dues and working your way up. Right now, millennials feel as though there is disconnect at some organizations with work/life balance. Companies have policies to help facilitate balance, but then no one follows them. A millennial at a consumer goods company says that they have “no meeting Fridays,” but senior managers still set meetings on Friday. Few people are actually going to say no to a meeting called by their manager. A millennial manager will be more compelled to honor and uphold these policies.

Furthermore, flexible work schedules are offered, but millennials are looked down upon if they actually take advantage of the offerings. Again, there seems to be a disconnect that balance is okay if it’s for taking care of children or older parents, but balance isn’t okay if it’s for hanging out with friends or catching an early yoga class. One millennial notes,

Traditionally, work-life balance is driven by families and children, and things that are a no-brainer. For example, “My kid is sick, I’m leaving” or “Story time and homework are from 5 to 8 PM so work is blocked out,” which is perceived to be legitimate. Our generation is getting married and starting later in life, and choosing to have “me” time doesn’t seem to fit into “traditional” work/life balance. When you’re single, the ways you may balance your life may seem luxurious or selfish. Leaving at 4:00 PM to go to spin class versus leaving at 4:00 PM to pick up the kids from daycare.

For boomers, paying your dues may mean that at first, you don’t have that much work/life balance. That’s something that you earn more of as you gain experience. Millennials will fight for this to change. Millennials say that as long as they are getting the work done, why should it matter how long they are working?

Millennials see how their managers stifle initiatives for flexibility by the way they run their teams, and millennials will be “enablers” when it comes to flexibility. A millennial manager asserts, “You don’t always need to share the reason as to why you need to leave early. You can keep the reason to yourself. Younger people have a mental roadblock that balance looks different for different people.” Millennial managers will make sure they are practicing what they preach and that they are running their team in a way that supports balance. It’s a dynamic that undoubtedly will cause a little more turmoil as the millennials stick by their value for a balanced life for themselves and their team.

Shaking It Up

If you look at companies started by young professionals, they are little microcosms that reflect all of these millennial values. With millennials or young gen Xers as their founders and with millennials as most of their first employees, they could start from scratch with these new, fundamental principles. At Facebook, they host company-wide “Hackathons” with company-provided food, beer, and tunes and where any idea is up for grabs. They have gourmet chefs who whip up free food in their cafeteria, and video games, a ping-pong table, and an annual game day. Their motto is “to move fast and break things.” That’s collaborative, flexible, transparent, casual, and balanced.

Groupon’s company culture is similar. Founder Andrew Mason told Fast Company in an interview, “The companies that I like to do business with are—even if you find them a bit strange—genuine and real.”⁷ The Groupon team is rich with improv actors and comedy writers, and just like its witty and lighthearted promotions, the company likes to keep its culture fun and collaborative. It even has a whimsical “Michael’s room,” where employees can retreat to take a break—or a nap.

At Twitter, employees have happy hour Fridays once a month and the company covers 100 percent of an employee’s health insurance.⁸ EventBrite has regular company outings and trips to a trampoline park.⁹ However, it’s not all about the perks of foosball tables and free food. It’s the underlying principle that work is more than just work. It’s a launching point for a collaborative team that fosters hard work but supports a balanced and healthy life and career of learning. And this perspective on work is working.

Millennials are attracted to companies that reflect their values, and companies are finding that if they want to attract the best talent, they need to make their workplaces more millennial friendly—which really boils down to being more friendly. Even for companies that have been around for centuries, millennial managers are spreading their influence and instilling these new values—collaborative, flexible, transparent, casual, and balanced—to build a more rewarding work environment.