AdAge.com Article – Gen Y-ers Career Drive
April 10, 2008
Give Gen Y-ers a Reason to Stay at Your Agency
We All Must Dramatically Re-engineer How We Approach Entry-Level Positions
Published: April 07, 2008
Ever scanned tomorrow’s calendar only to find that a junior member of your team has scheduled 15 minutes with you but offered no specific reason? Any astute manager knows that this dreaded appointment will likely contain either complaining, crying or quitting — all of which are rather unpleasant but entirely manageable. However, Gen Y employees have begun using these 15-minute sessions for a much more captivating reason: to take their senior-most management through the Four Ps: the Personal-Progress PowerPoint Presentation.
From a design standpoint, the Four Ps I have observed generally were quite stunning and demonstrated tremendous mastery of PowerPoint’s next-generation offerings — hyperlinks, unusual custom animations, video and the new 2007 Word Art function. But while the form of each varied dramatically, the function did not. All of the presentations were built around three distinct sections:
1. ACCOMPLISHMENTS
A comprehensive list of the projects the employees had worked on since joining and a recap of what they had learned about themselves, the agency and our business.
2. GOALS
Specific short-term and long-term objectives the employees had set for themselves, often the most significant portion of the presentations. Some key shared desires, such as to marry personal and business passions, to quickly move between jobs, to make lots of money.
3. EXPECTATIONS
Each presentation ended with three asks: a promotion, a specific salary increase and a desired effective date for both.
At the conclusion of each presentation, I was all too happy to give the presenters the positive recognition they wanted and deserved. But beyond that, my hands were tied. If I could have given them the raises and promotions they desired, I would have. But our business model just doesn’t support those actions. These frustrated Gen Y-ers might have begun job searches or, even worse, developed a crushing resentment toward me and the agency and written about it in their blogs. Who can blame them?
The brightest of my junior account folks attended notable universities and graduated with impressive GPAs. They ran fraternities, philanthropic organizations, student governments. And what can I offer them in return? A frequently mind-numbing job filling out insertion orders for newspaper ads, managing Excel budgets, updating status reports and writing up competitive alerts, all for a salary that’s considerably lower than what their client equivalents make.
Agencies need to find a new employment model that better caters to Gen Y’s 21st-century skill set, enviable ambition and vibrant desire for recognition. If we don’t, rest assured we will continue to lose smart and driven people to other, more-Gen-Y-friendly industries.
In a recent survey of our New York office, the majority of our employees under 25 wanted quarterly performance check-ins with their direct supervisors and separate quarterly meetings with their department heads. Right.
We all must dramatically re-engineer how we approach entry-level positions. Here we’re testing rotational department/discipline employment, reverse mentoring, master’s-level strategic education, personalized performance metrics and accelerated compensation models.
Gen Y employees are playing a more active role than ever in managing their careers. Our job is to find new ways to motivate, inspire and reward them. If we don’t, I fear these “Ad”-olescents won’t be taking us through their PowerPoint decks any longer, because there simply will be none of them left.
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Mark Strong is group managing director on McCann Erickson’s global MasterCard business.
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Rockin’ Ben Folds
March 18, 2008
I’ve never made an official list of my all-time favorite albums, but if I did – this one would totally be on it:
Rockin’ the Suburbs – Ben Folds
Partly, I think the reason is the memories. I remember the coffee shop I spent countless late-night hours at drinking something with the name Triple in it while I was at Marquette. They played this album ALL the time, and everytime I hear it I can remember the smell of coffee, the sound of Ben Fold’s piano, and the cold air that sat right around the front doors.
What was the name of that place? It was the one in the student union, right across the street from… wow, I can’t believe I can’t remember the names of these places. I know I lived in Schroeder.
I’ll have to get back to you on that one. Either way – this album makes me happy. And provided the perfect escape during a crappy work day.
And now I’m craving coffee. 
Spring Fever
March 14, 2008
Today is the second day of two days that I’ve enjoyed weather warm enough to sit on the porch for awhile.
Last night, pinot grigio by my side and laptop hosting Facebook and gmail pages in my lap, I sat on the porch for an hour or better, enjoying the mild pre-Spring-y-ness and calmness of my St. Paul neighborhood.
Just prior to my porching, I’d just gotten back from a work happy hour with a well-respected manager and two of her associates from the “other” side. We cheers’ed to a great team effort on a recent pitch as we clinked our Sacre Bleu pinot noirs, but in my head I was cheers’ing to the merging of the planners with the buyer. Incest I can really get behind.
Anyway, (oh! my neighbor and his lovely lady friend just home! Perhaps, they’ll join me out here)… I came home, changed into sweats, grabbed the rest of my bottle of wine, and came out on the porch to enjoy the Thomas Kincade-esque lamp posts and calmness of my neighborhood streets from my wicker throne on the porch.
Roomie Angie and her bf showed up a bit after and joined me. We discussed many important things, did a yoga demonstration, and ultimately decided that LOST is the most addicting show. EVER.
Today, I put in a half day, ran some errands (ok, Target for some uber cute Leprechaun chic attire for tomorrow’s debauchery and bar crawling), and am now back on the porch. I came back to a book I recently started (How to Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young), read about 2 chapter and then decided to do this instead.
So here I am. No pinot grigio this time, but I do have a glass of REALLY crappy champagne next to me. And I’m listening to 89.3 The Current’s live broadcast from SXSW. This music, this overly sweet bubbly concoction, paired with this amazing late Friday PM sunshine and the kids on my street I’m watching on their bikes = pure Twin Cities heaven.
Large Dark Roast, please
March 1, 2008
I was recently asked (via email survey!) what I wanted to be “when I grow up” when I was little and then what I actually am now. I liked my answer to the latter so much that I’m posting it for you.
#29 – What are you now? Media Buyer Professionalle (say it like it sounds people)/research and national television ratings whore/should-be stockholder in Caribou Coffee
Thank You For Calling ULTA, Your Beauty Destination
September 25, 2007
Well, I didn’t go back to World Market. They never called, despite cute little shift manager girl telling me that they were desperately hiring, and definitely would love that I already have World Market Wine Shop experience. But, no phone call. So, I figured I’d try another former place-of-employment of mine – ULTA. And since the hiring manager is a former coworker, long-time pal of mine, it wasn’t too difficult to persuade her that I’d be a decent asset.
Anyway, I started there on Saturday. While it’s nice to be making some extra $, I miss the downtime already… with the exception of a few hours on Sunday night, I have been moving just about nonstop since Saturday morning.
With the help of my dad and good pal Jer, I moved the bulk of my stuff from storage to the house in St. Paul – where I’m moving in November. After that, I worked, then with the promise of bowling and beer, I drove up to Brainerd to see That Cute Guy. Left Brainerd on Sunday morning (but not after breakfast and coffee… awwww) and went straight back to work. (NOTE: do NOT wear pointy-toed heels to stand on your feet all day!)
Yesterday – wow, I barely remember. I worked, I remember that. And I remember feeling as though it had been productive. Oh yeah, then I met dad at his wine club (schmancy, I know), The Grape Nutz for some themed food and wine. Left there to head to watch The Bachelor premiere with some girlfriends and to drink more wine.
Today started at 5:30am, and I had another super productive day until around 2 when I got a migraine-ish type headache-of-all-headaches. You know – the kind where your vision goes blurry, you get a little off-kilter, and your brain feels like it’s trying to push itself beyond the walls of your skull. THAT kind of headache. Needless to say, I lost the level of productivity from the day before and instead counted down the minutes until I could get away from that computer screen.
That didn’t do a whole lot of good considering here I am, in front of a computer, in class.
I just realized this got rambly. Quick wrap up with why I’m excited about the rest of the week:
My 15.5 Minutes :)
September 21, 2007
Check out The Rash Report this week! John (the boss man and the brains behind the content) is on vacay/pat leave this week, so I’ve been filling in for him – this has been fun and I think the fact that it’s the first of the new fall season premieres, I’ve had the stories pretty much handed to me. So to check out some Nielsen ratings analysis and chatter about the new fall shows, go here:
Up and Comings
August 26, 2007
I think this is going to be a big Fall for me. I’ve already signed up for the orientation-type class at MCTC to learn about their Web Design and Development classes, which I intend to take a few of this fall. I’ve also started (as I mentioned in previous post) getting my name out there attached to a love of wine and pop culture, which includes great writing opportunities, which I’m always looking for!
On top of flexing my mental muscles, I’m hoping also to stretch out my pocketbook and have gone to the World Market in Woodbury in hopes of working PT in their wine shop. I figured my edge having done that at the Roseville store would help – and it seems like it did. Cute Little Shift Manager Girl seemed pretty excited that I wouldn’t need training and agreed to pass my info onto the general manager. Promising! I’m also tossing around the idea of going back to ULTA – I miss the pretty-stuff know-how and the discount on girlie fun things like makeup. The thought of three jobs makes me a little ill, but the job of a career plus two hobby-like jobs, perhaps only every OTHER weekend (instead of 7 day/week), and the notion of paying loans off before moving out again – well, that’s pretty tempting.
If I can get the things done today that I’d planned – which so far, just leaves going for a run and then showering – I might actually run down there and see what they think of it.
Good call. I think I’m going out for that run now.
Rambles
August 23, 2007
The only real point to this post right now is to try to calm my brain a little. My body and brain are completely exhausted, but for some reason, my mind’s still awake. I’ve been up since 5:30, I packed in a full day of work – the kind where by the end of the day, you start forgetting what you were doing about a second after you started it – then killed about 3 hours in between before playing a late-night (9:40!) game of volleyball. I live across the Cities from the courts where we play, so it’s now quarter of midnight, and I’ve finally just sat down after getting home, taking a shower, and pouring a glass of wine that I’ve really only stared at so far. The idea of picking up the glass is making me tired.
One thing I can comment on or point out though – kudos to the road planners and peeps that added the 4th lane to I-94 between Hwy 280 and 35W. I travel that route every single weekday morning and afternoon to work, and since the bridge collapsed, with 280 being the main alternate route, traffic on that stretch has gotten really tight. Granted, the times I’ve been traveling there this week so far have been outside of normal rush hours (I’ve been working way too early/late!) but it is SO much nicer! Hats off to all who contributed to jump on that so quickly and provide us commuters with a bit of an easier AM and PM drive.
