How To Manage Millenials On Your Sales Team By: Michael Ayres

So you want to properly manage your newly minted Millennial workforce... One quick look around your sales organization and you begin to notice a largely unmentioned trend: more and more of your frontline employees communicate, work and think starkly dierent from potentially yourself and those over the age of 35. They walk and talk with a smartphone strapped to their sides 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They expect more for the work they oer and arent afraid of risk. Rightly so, they have been coined millennials. This generational gap has caused organizational tension, however, as PWC found that 38% of millennial respondents felt older senior management dont relate to younger workers and 34% felt their personal drive was intimidating to older generations.

Throughout the past ten years this group has been labeled as entitled, brash, disloyal and impatient. Some say they are aged 18-34 while others argue it is anyone born after 1985. Its time we read between these thin lines of stereotypes and bits of miscommunication. Its time that you, the sales manager, learn about what exactly it means to be a millennial. How do they work, think, and get motivated to accomplish goals and create value? Just recently I wrote for salesforce.coms blog regarding generational gaps. With over 1,000 views and 275 social shares in one week, it is evident the topic is gaining traction. Here at Rivalry we have spent some serious time delving into the latest information available and deciphering what is most important for sales organizations. The managers who win over millenials will win the next 20 years of business leadership. Lets take a look.

Michael Ayres, Marketing Operations at Rivalry

Michael Ayres

What to Expect

Step 1: The Right Perspective 1. Who are Millennials? What are their Traits/Stereotypes? 2. Millennial Myths 3. What do they Care About? 4. What do they Want in the Workplace?

Step 2: Solutions 5. What are the right steps to implementing change and enhancing performance?

Step 1: The Right PerspectiveAs defined by PEW Research, Millennials are people born after 1981 in the United States. They proceed Generations X (1965-1980), Baby Boomers (1946-1964) and the Silent Generation (1928-1945). By 2030, they will make up more than 50% of the U.S. workforce and currently comprise 30% of the population and rising. They are more ethnically diverse than ever before with 61% white/caucasian, 19% hispanic, 14% black and 5% asian 1% other. Most telling, perhaps, is that 75% of millennials have an active social media profile, more than double that of Baby Boomers and 25% more than Generation X. Better yet, over 80% of millennials sleep with a powered phone less than 5 ft away from them every day. They are connected, active and quickly becoming dominant in the workplace.

Typical Traits and Stereotypes (explained by Rice University)

The Bad Sheltered Narcissistic Impatient The Good High achieving & highly motivated Collaborative/ Work Well in Teams Highly Educated Social Cause Oriented Entrepreneurial

Dierences of Opinion... Much of workplace issues with generational gaps stems from a lack of understanding and poorly conceived perceptions. A PEW research study of Americans in 2009 found that a large majority of people feel that older employees exhibit stronger work ethic, moral values and respect for others. Only in attitudes of other race groups did younger millennials win out. Are these perceptions true? Lets start by debunking some millennial myths.

Debunking Millennial MythsMYTH: MILLENIALS ARE LAZY AND UNPRODUCTIVE

False: A study by hotjobs.com found that, of millennials surveyed, almost 75% felt they will have to go back to school in order to be competitive in the future workplace. Along with this, the survey found that many felt they would have to work harder than previous generations in order to benefit from a parallel quality of life of their parents.

MYTH: MILLENIALS ONLY CARE ABOUT THEMSELVES

False: A 2012 JGA study found that, while millennials worry about self image, over three quarters of millennials made a financial gift for a social cause in 2011. Over 15% of these were gifts in excess of $500. Over 70% of respondents from the same study also raised funds and contributions for a non profit program. While millennials care about their personal perception, they care deeply about social causes and this will be key in motivating your organizational culture.

MYTH: MILLENIALS ARE DISLOYAL TO COMPANIES

False and True: While PWC found that millennials plan to move amongst companies an average of 2-5 times in their career, it is due to several valid reasons. First, millennials leave because they are oered MORE money. MillennialBranding, a research and consulting firm, found that 30% of millennial respondents left their job for a stronger work oer and 27% felt their company opportunities were limited. Second, they move because of personal reasons. A PEW research study found that the number one and two priorities of millennials include being a good parent and having a successful marriage. Struggling to manage a work life balance is a major reason for millennial job changes, not that they are fickle or necessarily quick to change.

What Do They Care About? According to a massive PEW millennial research study, Millennials priorities dier largely from the stereotypes that people have about them. The following graph seen below from PEW, displays these dierences.

What can we learn from these priorities? Alot. Millennials are a group of people that care deeply about community, family and a resemblance of a work life balance. What you begin to notice is that the core values of millennials are extraordinarily similar to the values of a majority of modern day Americans. Going against known stereotypes, PEW found that most millennials arent as focused on self indulgence and money as originally assumed. Less than 1% of applicants showed a deep desire to being famous and less than 9% wished for an inordinate amount of free time.

What Do They Want From The Workplace? Perhaps most important for an employer is understanding what exactly millennials want from an organization. A NextGen study from PricewaterHouseCoopers found 4 Key Drivers to Millennial needs in the workplace.

1. Manageable work-life balance2. Engaging work projects

3. Positive work culture4. Competitive Pay

Step 2: SolutionsForming a reasonable and realistic path of solutions to attract and retain millennial talent is not easy, but the steps are clear. Lets take a look at the path to millennial success in your sales organization below:

Part A: Flexible Work HoursPace Productivity found that outside sales reps work approximately 49 hours a week. This includes time outside the oce (product demos, mobile work time etc). Understandably, this leaves little time for personal issues and errands. PWC even found that 15-21% of employees would reduce their pay package for the ability to work less hours during the week.

WHAT SHOULD I DO?

EVALUATE - Perform an in house, anonymous, survey of your sales reps to ask two very important questions: First, how they rate the amount of hours they work on a weekly basis and, two, if they would prefer to have the option of completing more work on the road. Luckily, outside sales is very mobile in nature and leveraging mobile technology is one way to allow people to work outside the oce.

ACTION - Based on the results of your survey, strategize to compromise with employees on the amount of time they can work away from the oce. If productivity does not suer as a result, the solution is a brilliant way to retain talent and keep working morale high.

Point B: Powerful Work TrainingSales organizations typically focus on high performing, high return training. However, A UNC Executive Development study found that 46% of young adults feel they lacked the education or training necessary to get ahead in their careers. Is your sales organization providing a coherent and quality training program? WHAT SHOULD I DO?

EVALUATE - The first question to ask is whether or not you even have an onboarding training program for new sales hires, regardless of whether or not they are experienced hires or not.

Allow reps that go through a typical sales training cycle to rate the eectiveness of the training provided and follow up in 6 months to see if the knowledge continues to be relevant in their job. The key here is incentivizing quality and thought-out responses. Keep questions restricted to radio button and 1-10 responses and the number of questions under 7.

ACTION - After reading responses from your training program and incrementally changing your training process, allow younger recruits to be joined with older managers in a mentor program. Much more on starting a mentor program can be found here at Inc.com

Point C: Meaningful ProjectsIn sales, meaningful accounts are largely associated with the prestige of the customer and the amount of recurring revenue they provide the company. Generally, senior and experienced reps manage these accounts, but that does not mean younger recruits should not be involved. WHAT SHOULD I DO?

INVOLVE - Once a month or once a quarter, provide a contest for the top performing new sales rep to have the opportunity to shadow the account manager of a larger, more complex customer.

Allowing younger recruits to see and touch higher responsibility work completes two tasks:

1. Motivates the sales rep.2. Gives them a clear sight on the management chain within their

company.

Transparency is key for retaining talent.

WHAT I SHOULD NOT DO?

FALSE PROMISES: Millenials are smart. Remember, you may have one or two of your own. Many in sales management provide false promises to them. This will be the death of leadership and respect of management if you or one of your sales managers consistently provides false promises.

ACTION: In coordination with not providing false promises, one action item that will generate respect from millenials is challenge their ambition, ego, and perceived coolness. If they keep talking about the coolest concert of music venue, buy a ticket for them and see if they go. Do they keep talking about blogging? Find out what they write about. Respect will be earned.

Point D: Proven, Frequent Feedback An MTV study of millennials aptly named No Collar Workers found that 80% of millennial workers want regular feedback from managers. This diers strongly from Baby Boomers who are used to 1-2 yearly, formal performance reviews. Transitioning your organization to one of more frequent feedback can be paired nicely with a strong mentor program WHAT SHOULD I DO?

A New Feedback Policy - Look at your current performance review system. How often is it done? Yearly? Quarterly? Do your sales reps feel it provides them with enough information to become better sales reps? A workforce.com post on frequent performance reviews and feedback is a great example on how measuring multiple sources of employee feedback and relaying it to the right employee can have powerful results.

Take these steps and add some more. Let us know what you implemented and worked best for your company. Send us an email at Michael.Ayres@Rivalry.com and well feature you on the blog!

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Sources Pew Demographic Status PWC 1 Pace Productivity UNC Executive Development PWC 2 MTV Survey Workforce.com Wired Millennial Branding CIOzone Forbes JGA - used in myth section