Finding good employees in our industry has never been easy. The physical nature of the work along with the hours, salaries, and benefits have always made it a challenge for boarding kennel and daycare operators to find and keep quality staff.

But managing today’s workforce presents an entirely new set of challenges. To some of us, the “Millennials” are an alien species. We have trouble recruiting them, problems managing them, and even more problems trying to keep them. We don’t understand how they can show up for job interviews in flip flops, pierced and tattooed, plugged into their iPods. We feel disrespected by their constant questioning of authority. We don’t understand how to deal with their “slacker” attitude.

The fact of the matter is this is our now and future workforce. At more than 70 million strong, this is the largest generation since the Baby Boomers. We should expect them to redefine the world as the Boomer generation did… and that includes in the workplace.

At Best Friends Pet Care, we’ve recently spent some time studying and discussing the Millennials to understand how to attract, manage, and retain this new generation of employees best. In this and a subsequent article, I’ll be sharing some of what we’ve learned.

What Is It About This Generation?
Before we can figure out how to work with this generation best, we need to understand them and how – and why – their values and expectations are SO different from those of us in the Boomer and Gen X generations.

Let’s begin by defining terms. The Millennial Generation refers to those who were born in the waning days of the 20th century and at the dawn of the 21st – roughly between the years 1982 and 2004. While there is some disagreement among historians about the exact years that define this generational cohort, it is generally accepted that the oldest are just reaching the age of 30 while the youngest are just finishing elementary school. They have also been called Generation Y, Generation We, Generation Next, and the Echo Boomers (referencing the fact that they are children of the Baby Boom generation).

Every generation is impacted by the political and cultural environment surrounding their formative years. Critical to understanding this generation is recognizing what was happening in the world when they came of age – and it was a period of extreme political, economic, and social turmoil. Consider the events that have defined the Millennials’ world just in the past decade:

• The 9/11 attacks, Al Qaeda, international terrorism, the war in Afghanistan, Weapons of Mass Destruction, the Patriot Act, the war in Iraq, and Arab spring
• Domestic terrorism, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine High School and Virginia Tech student massacres, and random gun violence on streets and in public places (like the Aurora movie theater shooting)
• Corporate malfeasance – from Enron and Goldman Sachs to Halliburton and the BP Deepwater Horizon
• The dotcom bubble, Bernie Madoff, the real estate market collapse, the stock market meltdown, and the Great Recession
• High-profile scandals surrounding political leaders (John Edwards, Rod Blagojevich, Eliot Spitzer), sports heroes (Tiger Woods, Barry Bonds, Marion Jones), and even religious figures (the Catholic Church).
• Parents’ losing jobs after decades of loyalty to a company as the economy collapsed
• Families’ losing their homes because of derivatives, bundling, and other mortgage market problems.
• The highest divorce rate (almost 50%) in history and the highest rate of single-parent households.

It’s been quite an extraordinary two decades if you think about it. Not since the Silent Generation, who grew up under the veil of the Depression and World War II, has such a large number of young people come of age in such uncertain times. Growing up in a climate dominated by the headlines above is bound to affect your world view.

Technology Plus Super-Parents
We must remember that these young men and women grew up in a world that is driven by technology. In fact, they have never lived in a world where technology did NOT take a front and center role. Consider this:

• They played learning games on computers before they even started school. They’ve been plugged into their iPods and personal cellphones since early middle school. (Many parents took instruction from their teens on how to use these devices.)
• They were the early adopters who drove Facebook and other social media outlets to such wide popularity.
• They grew up in a communications environment defined by fast-moving MTV-style video and dominated by IM shorthand (BRB, LOL, IMHO) and the 140-character tweet.
• They are the ultimate multi-taskers who grew up doing homework on their laptop while listening to iTunes and video-chatting with friends.
• They are the leading users of smart phones. They text and walk (and sometimes drive) at the same time. They strive to stay “connected” 24/7.

Our look at this generation would be incomplete without recognizing the very distinctive way it was parented. Unlike previous generations in which children were cautioned to be “seen and not heard,” the Millennial children were encouraged to find their voices – and speak their minds – early in life.

Millennials expert and author Bruce Tulgan described it this way: “Their parents were determined to create a generation of super-children.” According to Tulgan, the parents of this generation over-scheduled, over-supervised, and over-pampered their children since they were toddlers, striving to create children who felt confident and empowered.

Making It Work
Tulgan says that this will be the “most high-maintenance workforce in history,” but he believes that Millennials also have the potential to be high-performance as well.

In my next article, I will debunk some of the most widely held myths about Millennials (e.g. they feel entitled, they have no loyalty, and they are disrespectful of authority) as well as discuss some of the advantages of Millennial workers and how we can make the working relationship work.

Joan Nieman, Vice President of Operations for Best Friends Pet Care, has more than 30 years of experience in the pet care industry. Prior to joining Best Friends in 1994, she owned and operated The Pet Resort in Oklahoma for a decade. Over the years, Nieman has been active in pet care industry associations with a special interest in helping to define and establish industry-wide standards.

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