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We caught up with Sean Graham – president of Idea Insurance and speaker on the panel ‘Celebrating Differences: Optimising Your Multigenerational Workplace’ at Toronto’s upcoming Millennials In Insurance conference – to ask him about the biggest challenges around welcoming a new generation into the workplace…
Insurance Business: What does an inclusive workplace culture look like for millennials?
Sean Graham: An inclusive office culture would be one where millennial new hires are not seen as junior people who need to develop experience in order for them to make major contributions to the company. Too often as an industry we bring young people in as an admin or TSR position and tell them they need to wait a couple of years before they can be looked at for advancement or before they can help shape the culture of the company. Bill Gates founded Microsoft when he was 20 years old. Steve Jobs founded Apple at 21. Elon Musk founded his first multi-million-dollar company at 25. With insurance becoming more and more technologically advanced we need millennials to be welcomed into the board room. It’s their ideas that are more likely to transform a company than someone who has been doing something tried and true for decades.
IB: How does communication style differ among generations? Why is it important?
SG: I think most people would agree that the younger generation’s communication is more text based whereas the older generations are more verbal and in person where possible. It’s important for each age group to understand who they are communicating with, whether it be clients or colleagues, or your boss, and what their preferred method of communication is. If you send a text message to your boss saying you can’t make it in to work today they might not be impressed. If you leave a bunch of voicemails for a client when all they want is an email from you then you could lose a sale. I’ve always told my staff that if your email is longer than two paragraphs you might want to just pick up the phone or walk over to your colleague’s desk, or for God sakes raise your voice to speak to the person 10 feet away from you rather than send an SMS. I think it’s important for Millennials to know that non-verbal physical communication can be just as, or more important than, the message. People’s facial expressions or non-verbal cues such as slouching, crossed arms or leaning in are all indicators of engagement. This is lost when communicating by email or text or virtual meetings. Conversely when a manager is constantly requiring staff to attend face to face meetings this can be a turn off to some people. Know your audience and adapt to it. If Millennials want to advance into leadership positions they will need to have well rounded communication skills in various formats.
IB: How do you turn generational differences into a strategic advantage for you and your organization?
SG: Different generations come with different acquired skillsets. Like any good relationship, skills should be complementary to each other, not identical. This makes for a stronger, more comprehensive team. Boomers and Gen Xers have a tremendous wealth of experience to pass on to younger generations but may have a harder time adapting to change or innovation. Gen Y and Z have grown up with technology as an extension of themselves and therefore have incredible technical skills. They also have a zeal for innovation and personal growth.
This is where a good business leader steps in and matches their mutual needs. It’s a trade-off of skills for sure, like tech vs. experience, but more importantly it’s an exchange of intergenerational culture that builds cohesiveness. Both can feel valued by the other if they work towards a common goal. Doing a great job and feeling a great sense of accomplishment while feeling valued by their boss, the client, and most importantly for the millennial, by their mentor. It can be a win, win, win for the clients, employees and businesses. A good leader can be a matchmaker and then step back and let them do their thing.
IB: Why is it important to innovate in a way that keeps up with a changing culture?
SG: A former boss of mine used to say “if you’re not growing you’re dying.” Innovation should be at the core of any growing business. Innovation for the sake of it is, in itself, not necessarily a good thing, it has to be focused with the goal of satisfying your clients as well as employees. I have seen businesses with a high concentration of millennials suffer from catastrophic employee retention because the staff was craving innovation but the business leaders were content with their current business model. Not only did the business lose market share to others who were catching up to them but they lost their most innovative staff. The end result is a perfect storm for a failing business. I know of a business who lost their entire seven person executive team and half of their staff (along with 70% of their web traffic) due to lack of innovation because they were content with where they were at and Google moved their cheese. They also had a really cool office environment when they first started including a games room, social areas and Friday afternoon beverage cart. Over time all of these things lost their coolness and people didn’t care about them anymore. Their priorities had changed with the times.
