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Millennials in the Workplace – True or False

We Millennials can be a little difficult to decode at work; our incessant attachment to our phones; our buddying up with senior executives; our loose understanding of office hours. Many of our coworkers ultimately begin to believe that we are haphazard workers and that everything you need to know about Millennials at work can be had from any Girls episode.

I am here to tell you otherwise: Millennials are incredibly dedicated workers—many of us placing work before our relationships and lives outside of work. Here are a few myths about Millennials in the workplace, busted or verified, to help you actualize the potential of your Millennials on staff.

1.They do not have a strong work ethic.

FALSE: This is the top Millennial-in-the-workplace myth I have come up against over and over again as a Millennial brand consultant. There are many reasons for this misinterpretation. They may be lackadaisical about office hours, but they will answer your email at any time of the day, any day of the week. They may be wallflowers inside sales meetings but will lead dynamic, impromptu brainstorms. Give them the benefit of the doubt and encourage them by showing them you have confidence in their work—they will show you their work ethic is strong and sustainable.

2. They feel they are entitled.

½ TRUE, ½ FALSE: While Millennials continue to be humbled by a 68% diminished net worth compared to the generation before them, not to mention crippling student loans, Millennials do feel entitled to a piece of the pie. In their eyes, pay scales should be relative to hard work and productivity, not exclusively based on seniority. Which is to say, yes, your associate is eyeballing your salary and willing it to be adjusted to his or her 20-hour workday.

3. They expect to be promoted without the years of experience necessary to warrant the promotion. They seem to think they can fast track it to the future.

TRUE: This is the #1 point of tension between Millennials and generations past. In our eyes, if we have the skills and can handle the responsibility of our superiors, and have demonstrated that we can, why shouldn’t we be allowed to advance? Why measure experience by time instead of skill level and capability? In your eyes, experience is developed over time. Agree to disagree.

4. They are not loyal and will bolt to another job if they feel like it.

½ TRUE, ½ FALSE: Millennials are very loyal employees, but if they feel stifled, or if the only way up is out, they have less than no problem showing you they know how to use the door.

5. They want to be part of the decision-making process, no matter what level they are.

TRUE: A truism of truisms for Millennials is that they want to be involved in the decision-making process; politically, professionally. What they love about work is seeing how their work ties into the bigger picture. Bringing them into the formation of that bigger picture will not only make their contributions richer, it make them emotionally invested in the company—and you will hold on to them longer because of it.

Tagged With: Consumers, Human Resources, Social Media, Technology
See other articles by Grace Ehlers >>
Posted April 24, 2013

Are Apparel Retailers Shooting Themselves in the Footprint?

by Judith Russell

The Shift To E-Commerce May Be Too Much, Too Soon

On a recent afternoon I spent 20 minutes doing errands that a year or two ago would have taken me about eight hours to do.

Instead of jumping into my SUV and taking multiple trips to various big box and discount stores in my town, I strolled into my home office, powered up my trusty PC, and “went to town” in a different way. With a few clicks of a mouse I bought two or three carloads’ worth of stuff ranging from garden tools and patio furniture to office supplies and groceries.

Most of my purchases were made on pure-play e-commerce sites. Comparison shopping helped me get very good prices and free delivery. One category of merchandise failed to figure into my flurry of e-consumerism, however: I did not buy a single stitch of clothing. I am one of those people who prefer to shop for clothes in brick-and-mortar stores. I need to see, feel and try on clothes before I buy them to make sure they fit, look good and meet my quality standards. I do not trust computer monitors to accurately display important details like fabric, color, drape or weight.

It turns out I am not alone in this. According to e-commerce intelligence firm eMarketing, total U.S. e-commerce sales rose to $200 billion last year, or 7% of the total retail business. It is estimated that the portion of total apparel sales purchased online is much smaller—by some estimates only 5%. Making matters worse, returns of online apparel sales are as high as 40% for some retailers.

Online apparel sales, though growing, remain a relatively small part of the business because consumers need to touch, see and try on. Sucharita Mulpuru, analyst with technology powerhouse Forrester Research, feels that “the in-store experience remains a critical part of the buying process for discretionary items like apparel.” [Read more...]

Tagged With: Apparel, Brands, Consumers, E-Commerce, Internet, Social Media, Technology
See other articles by Judith Russell >>
Posted December 10, 2012

A Private Story

by Paco Underhill

(The Names Have Been Changed to Protect the Innocent)

He’d been an interesting but troubled friend in my youth. Tom had arrived at our fancy New England boarding school as a shy eighth grader interested in books, politics and music. He told us that his father, who was a 63-year-old New England gentleman farmer when he was born, had been T.S. Eliot’s roommate at Harvard. That story was beyond the construction abilities of 1960’s teenage braggadocio, so we believed him.

During the spring of our junior year his father died, and Tom lost it. He failed his final exams and was told he had to go to summer school to keep up with his class. He returned in the fall and promptly dropped out. In our yearbook we put a picture of Tom holding up a dime (the cost of phone call back then) and a seven-digit telephone number.

The late teenage years can be a very troubled time. Paired with the political and social climates of the era, Tom’s issues were not unique, just early. Ten percent of our boarding school graduating class that year was dead within a year of leaving school, mostly due to suicide. It was the goody-two-shoes guys that went first, having been shocked at how different the world was from what they’d been led to believe.

I graduated and promptly rented an apartment for the summer in Boston where I had a job with a publishing company on Beacon Hill. Halfway through the summer, by what circumstances I don’t recall, Tom turned up at my door with his pregnant girlfriend seeking a place to crash. They stayed in the apartment until my lease ran out in the end of August. She found a job, he didn’t. As I left for my freshman year in college, they moved into the back of Tom’s aging farm Jeep. I didn’t see them after that. That was 42 years ago.

I am not big on reunions. I went to my high school’s 20th and got asked by some sniveling Boston Brahmin where I “summered,” and realized I had not fit in back then, much less now. I did have a conversation with someone about Tom. Over the next 20 years I crossed paths with the same person three or four times. Each time we talked about him. [Read more...]

Tagged With: Distribution, Facebook, Marketing, Politics, Social Media
See other articles by Paco Underhill >>
Posted September 9, 2012

Derailing the Showrooming Scare

by John Barbee, Andrew Billings, Benjamin Mokotoff and Jon Watschke

It’s easy to see why showrooming is keeping many brick-and-mortar retailers up at night. In fact, it looks like the beginning of a bad epidemic-outbreak movie — some retailers even feel powerless to slow its advance and are reduced to simply watching, one by one, as those around them succumb and close their doors for good.

But in reality, retailers aren’t powerless against showrooming. They have a choice: they can either combat showrooming or embrace it. The decision to combat or embrace it depends on the level of susceptibility a retailer may face, which in turn depends on the demographics of the retailer’s target customers, product price points and merchandise type.

Demographics. A recent Kurt Salmon and Prosper Corporation survey of 8,000 consumers revealed that 70 percent of consumers ages 25 to 54 with smart phones use them to comparison shop, up from 62 percent a year ago. And of those who use their smart phones to comparison shop in-store, almost one in three ultimately buys the product online, according to ClickIQ. Older consumers are getting more comfortable with showrooming as well. The Kurt Salmon survey found that 49 percent of consumers ages 55 to 65 use their smart phones to comparison shop. And as the population ages, the percentage of the population showrooming will continue to grow.

Perhaps not surprisingly, wealthier consumers are also more likely to showroom. The Kurt Salmon survey showed that 65 percent of consumers with incomes over $150,000 a year comparison shop on their smart phones, compared to only 56 percent of consumers who earn under $50,000 a year. [Read more...]

Tagged With: Accessories, Amazon, Apparel, Consumers, Retail, Social Media, Technology
See other articles by John Barbee, Andrew Billings, Benjamin Mokotoff and Jon Watschke >>
Posted July 17, 2012

Facebook: A Popping Bubble

by Robin Lewis

I’ll tell you one thing. I am sick and tired of the 24/7 surround sound about Facebook. And, I certainly don’t care to hear every detail about the hoodied, smart, and incredibly lucky one’s life.

Seriously, whether or not Facebook’s IPO was the big pin-prick popping of the entire technology industry as described in “Tech Bubble II,” or just a little release of air, remains to be seen. But, I do believe it was a serious popping of Facebook’s own bubble – one whose inflation has been taking place over the past several years, and with particular intensity leading up to the IPO.

Ironically, the investment geeks expected a different sort of “pop” on opening day. Too bad for you guys, but I don’t really worry about you anyway, knowing you’ll fill some other balloon full of hot air for the “greater fools” to throw money at. Furthermore, you did this to yourselves by pricing the shares at a whopping $38, which put a valuation on the company of $104 billion, more than 100 times Facebook’s net profit, while Google is at 18 times earnings and Apple at 13 times. And, of course, Amazon, worth about $90 billion today, was valued at just over $400 million when it went public in 1997. Ebay, currently valued at about $40 billion, went public in the 90’s at a $650 million valuation, and Cisco, perhaps the most important company in computer networking infrastructure, worth about $92 billion, went public at $225 million profit.

So, why in the world did the supposed brilliant financiers leading this IPO tag the opening price at $38? The many experts who’ve weighed in on this have called it just plain stupid. Maybe the financiers were simply drinking their own bubble-laced Kool-Aid, victims of their own hyped-up machines creating the next great derivative balloon, which in itself is scary because you know they’ll find one, if they have not already in Tech Bubble II. [Read more...]

Tagged With: Amazon, Facebook, Finance, Retail, Social Media, Technology
See other articles by Robin Lewis >>
Posted May 22, 2012

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