What Makes Our Next Generation Tick?

What it will take for companies to attract and retain their next-gen workforce?

What makes our next generation tick? Their hearts and minds seem to be focused on something other than building a single capability and establishing a career with a single company. This can be exasperating for some Boomer and Gen X leaders who interpret the next generation as inconstant and unreliable. If you talk directly to young people and read what generational experts say, you’ll find a different story. The next generation may think differently about careers than the current workforce, but they are still focused on developing successful careers.

Different Generations

So why all the differences between the different generations? The answer is not simply that each generation thinks differently; it’s a bit more complex than that. Here in the U.S., we have a physical gap in ages in our workforce. The Boomer generation, America’s largest workforce (84 million), will be nearly gone by 2035. That’s only 15 more years.

Companies that have waited until now to address this issue may feel forced to “jump through hoops” to try to attract and retain a new workforce—bringing in recreation rooms, latte machines, and collaboration spaces in the hope that this is what the next generation wants. We believe, and most experts confirm, these measures are not motivating our next generation to join your company, let alone stay there long term.

How to Attract Gen Y Employees

Each generation is motivated in different ways when it comes to their careers and what they would like to achieve. Workforce experts talking with our current generational workforce have gathered great insights to help us solve the issue of attracting employees from our next generation. Deloitte Insights has run global surveys each year of Gen Y since 2013 (and has recently started adding in Gen Z data). The top three items Gen Y looks for when shopping for a new job are:

  • What is the job paying?
  • What type of workplace culture does the company have? (Are they ‘just’ making money or do they work to improve/help society at large?)
  • Does the job have flexibility? (Think beyond daily hours to policies about discretionary time off and the option for unpaid leave.)

How to Keep Gen Y Employees

Deloitte shows that Gen Y employees leave a job on average every 18-24 months. In other words, not long after they show they have the skill and ability for the job to work unsupervised, they may leave! Here are the top three things Gen Y employees say about why they leave a company:

  • Their boss (Consider some real investment into future leaders; they are the company to the next generation.)
  • A lack of engagement by their leader and a lack of training/coaching to improve their skillset long term.
  • Split between no real flexibility in the work schedule and no true ‘cause’ to inspire/motivate them (beyond just getting a paycheck)

Gen Y employees generally appreciate development opportunities and value clear time off policies to create a better work-life balance.

What You Can Do Now

Are you looking for ways to attract and retain successful next generation professionals? We can provide you resources that will help your company to do just that. Let’s talk about your company’s successes and how we can help you develop and maintain a work culture that attracts next generation employees.

Satisfied Clients

  • "CCS and in particular Daryl as Project Manager has helped us achieve a world class Training, Competency and Assurance program. CCS provided independent verification of competency for all our offshore technical personnel. This program was aligned with our training matrix and their team developed all our relevant position performance standards, implemented (candidates assessed as Competent or Not Yet Competent with gap closure plans) in less than a year."
    Alan Howells – Hess GoM Sr. Operations Readiness Manager at Hess Corporation
  • “Daryl expertly led a team that created the definitive leadership competency assessment tool and supporting documents in a large oil and gas company. The tools and documents were the best I had seen in that company and represented best-in-class thinking and practices regarding leadership in hazardous occupations.”
    Jim Wetherbee, Captain – US Navy (Ret.), former Astronaut, Director of Flight Crew Operations, and author of Controlling Risk in a Dangerous World
  • “As our workforce changes, I know we can trust CCS to deliver a training that (1) helps our assessors understand the importance of competence in our workforce and (2) empowers them to perform objective assessments over and over again.   I would recommend Competency Consultancy Solutions to handle any company’s competence assurance program and assessment needs.”
    Elizabeth Holcomb-Fairchild, Discipline Capability Manager for BP GoM Operations
  • “The reviews from our employees consistently noted Daryl’s professionalism and clear delivery of the program content. I recommend Daryl for any Operations or Safety training program design and delivery."
    Randy Robichaux, REM, CSP VP of Environmental & Safety Regulations at Denbury Resources
  • “I would like to take a moment to thank you and the Competency Consultancy Solutions team for your partnership over the past three years. This partnership has been instrumental on our journey to becoming a High Reliability Organization (HRO).”
    Barry Hollis – TD Williamson Pipeline Services Global HSE Director for TD Williams Pipeline Services
  • "It was an absolute pleasure working alongside Daryl Brister and the CCS team. With their years of experience designing and developing competency systems and competence standards, they were able to provide not only tremendous professional guidance on our budding competence assurance process but also allowed for a remarkable amount of work to be completed in a very limited amount of time. They brought expertise, focus, and enthusiasm to the project, which ultimately led to significant added value for our organization.”
    Beth Hattier Ed.D – Direct Energy Competence Assurance Process Manager for Direct Energy
  • "I have benefited from knowing and working with Daryl Brister for several years. I have especially admired his knowledge, skills, and mental attitude regarding leadership in hazardous environments.”
    Jim Wetherbee, Captain – US Navy (Ret.), former Astronaut, Director of Flight Crew Operations, and author of Controlling Risk in a Dangerous World
  • “CCS’ products help leaders realize the power of using effective leadership behaviors to influence and inspire people to conduct safe, compliant, and high-quality operations. I have worked in hazardous operations for almost forty years, and I have rarely met someone with Daryl’s knowledge, skills, and attitude for helping managers who are trying to be successful as they lead people in dangerous endeavors.”
    Jim Wetherbee, Captain – US Navy (Ret.), former Astronaut, Director of Flight Crew Operations, and author of Controlling Risk in a Dangerous World
  • “I have had the pleasure to work with Daryl and the CCS team in developing and implementing our qualified assessor training course.  Mr. Brister and his team are truly the best at what they do. Their knowledge, professionalism, and attention to detail are exactly what we needed and what we will need in the future.”
    Elizabeth Holcomb-Fairchild, Discipline Capability Manager for BP GoM Operations
  • "Daryl was instrumental in the development and success of our Safe Work Operations program implementation. Daryl was very open and collaborative in getting out our message and content consistently across the organization.”
    Randy Robichaux, REM, CSP VP of Environmental & Safety Regulations at Denbury Resources
  • “The training you created and delivered improved our organization’s technical skills and HSE culture. The Safety Culture Leadership course helped us focus on our operational leaders and core support staff - developing their knowledge and understanding about core safety competencies which are needed to drive positive culture change. In addition, The Safe Work Management course focused on our frontline workforce and developed their knowledge and understanding of proper hazard identification and how to use our Operational Risk Assessment (ORA) process.”
    Barry Hollis – TD Williamson Pipeline Services Global HSE Director for TD Williams Pipeline Services
  • “The review and analysis of our HSE data was key in helping us focus our teams on improving the key defenses. The analysis demonstrated that our investigation corrective actions needed to be focused more on engineering controls. Best of all, your team felt like an extension of our internal HSE team. Thank you for your partnership and I look forward to working with you in the future.”
    Barry Hollis – TD Williamson Pipeline Services Global HSE Director for TD Williams Pipeline Services
  • I just wanted to acknowledge Mr. Mitch, the assessor for Competency Consultancy Solutions, who conducted my recent competency assessment. Mr. Mitch was very professional, provided clear instructions on the assessment process, and the assessment felt non-biased during the evaluation. Of the few times that I didn’t understand what was being asked of me, he took time and repeated the questions. He did inform me that he was unable to coach or help me with the answers, and though he helped me understand the questions he was asking from the competency standard, he never tried to “coach” or help provide any answers. Thanks again Mr. Mitch and CCS!
    James “Jimmy” Myers, Lead I&E Technician – Murphy Oil GoM
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