During the past two decades
a new generation of employees have emerged. This article identifies
the group as the "New Age Employees." I suppose they
are more popularly known as Generation X. They brought us skate
boards, the X games, the Simpsons and a variety of heavy metal
and rap musicians. They are now in the workforce, and, as every
generation before them, they create special challenges and opportunities
for all employers.
Some of the important issues the authors
discuss in this article are the challenges and opportunities
with respect to retention of the New Age employee in both the
public and the private sectors. In this respect the authors address
the group's emotional relationship to an employer. According
to the authors,
New Age employees will demonstrate lower
levels of affective commitment to their organization than that
demonstrated by traditional employees.
In other words, this is a group of workers
who will be less emotionally committed to their employer than
in past decades. I doubt that this observation comes as a great
surprise to many of us. During the past decade we have witnessed
the erosion of employer loyalty to long-term employees. And we
have seen young workers hop-scotch from job-to-job. Perhaps it
is the acceleration of the global economy that has resulted in
less commitment in general. Certainly this is very different
from the Organization Man of the 1950's.
A second observation the authors make is
related to the first: "New Age employees will demonstrate
lower levels of continuing commitment." In other words,
it will be more difficult to retain New Age employees. Again,
this is no great surprise. Without an emotional bond, an employee
is much more free to consider alternative employment situations.
If those issues represent challenges to
employers, the authors also point out an interesting characteristic
of the New Age employee which represents opportunity: "New
Age employees will demonstrate a higher level of work commitment."
This commitment includes a constant awareness of the necessity
of keeping up with new expertise in order to combat uncertain
job conditions.
As a consequence, as managers and supervisors
we might surmise that New Age employees are more motivated to
secure continuing education in their work and, by implication,
an employer that is most likely to retain such individuals by
creating such opportunities more frequently than in the past.
In fact, very often continuing education to this point has been
considered a luxury unless required by law or regulation. In
the future, it might become a necessity.