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November 19, 2007 Failing to Deliver
As the nations workforce gets older and the baby-boomer generation begins to settle into retirement, the economy is beginning to look to the younger generations to carry the load. The most recent generation to enter the workforce is known as Generation Y, which is comprised of people born after 1981. They are the generation raised on technology, from high-speed Internet and cell phones to PDA's and iPods. The generation that believes a college education ensures stepping into a position that may have taken years for the generation before to obtain. But before I get ahead of myself, I must admit that I myself am only a couple short years ahead of Generation Y. So, that being said, how is this newest generation of workers fairing in the real world? According to UPS, in terms of work performance thus far, Generation Y fails to deliver.
In a recent Fortune Magazine article, UPS reported employee discord began to show in 2003, when the oldest Generations Y employees were in their mid-20s. UPS senior staffers began to notice a serious decline in some major performance indicators, including a drivers' time to proficiency. Before, trainees had needed an average of 30 days to become proficient drivers; the younger group was taking 90 to 180 days. UPS also reported the number of new drivers quitting after 30 to 45 days on the job spiked. For UPS Generation Y employees make up over 60.0 percent of the company's part-time loader workforce, from which it draws the majority of new driver hires. And in the next five years, to keep the more than 100,000 driving jobs that currently exist filled, the company will need to train up to 25,000 new drivers. So what was it that was keeping Generation Y employees from performing the way their predecessors had? According to UPS, the most profound problem was the disconnect between an employees expectations about the driver position and the reality of the job. New hires had such a limited understanding of the demands of driving for UPS that, once on the road, they were virtually shocked into failure. To combat the problem, UPS management implemented a state of the art training program which uses simulations for everything from stepping off the back of the truck to backing into a loading dock and slip-and-fall simulator to train new employees. The results from this program are still undetermined, as it is still in the pilot phase. And while this is only one example of Generation Y in the workforce, an underlying question lingers. Are today's younger generations so out of touch that a simulation is needed to explain the mechanics of a job that has been done virtually the same way since 1913? One thing is undeniable, Generation Y will play a significant role in the future and how they get there remains uncertain.
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