These new hires don't want to work.

It's a complaint that many a Baby Boomer has uttered, but what's really going on in corrections and in other industries is a generational shift in the workplace. Without a better understanding of where Gen-Xers and the newest employee group, Millennials, come from and how they grew up, the more problems will arise in managing staff.

"The central issue is the sense of empowerment the Generation X applicant requires, rather than the concept of wait your turn and pay your dues. They seek a higher level of ownership in the agency from the get-go," said Adam Pulharic, Undersheriff for the Monmouth County, N.J., Sheriff's Office.

What corrections agencies find is that the Gen-Xer, (born between 1964 and 1980) wants to be promoted quickly and, even at a lower rank, wants to be included in decision-making. In addition, these independent individuals are more comfortable questioning authority, which can prove to be difficult for an organization with a paramilitary structure - like a jail or prison.

"That can wreak havoc on a law enforcement agency if the supervisors aren't prepared. It could lead to a lack of supervisory structure, an inability to motivate people and they could risk their own safety and that of others," said Pulharic.

Agencies, like Monmouth County Sheriff's Office, are beginning to hold trainings and classes for supervisors about managing the multi-generational workforce in an effort to create strategies for working with Gen-Xers and improve retention.

Those who have done research in this area say that developing different ways to manage the emerging workforce, including Generation-Xers and Millennials or Generation-Yers (born after 1980), is crucial to operating a smooth-running agency.

"Unless agencies recognize the need for short-term, rather than long-term incentives, more coaching-style management rather than do-as-I-say management, constantly challenging young people to take more responsibility and amass marketable skills [and] to be more flexible with schedules and manage for results - not a time clock, then they will have a difficult time," said Carolyn Martin, a consultant and Master Trainer for RainmakerThinking Inc. consultancy.

Martin and RainmakerThinking Founder Bruce Tulgan, have researched the generational shift of the workforce and have provided training for a variety of agencies on the different ways to manage these diverse members of the workforce. Within corrections, the National Institute of Corrections and a handful of jurisdictions have also begun to focus on this issue.

Accepting Differences

Whether inside or outside of a correctional system, spelling out the differences between the generations is one of the first steps to managing employees appropriately.

The generations at work include the Veterans (born before 1943), the Baby Boomers (born between 1943 and 1964), Generation X and Millennials.

In corrections, agencies were typically shaped by the Veterans, are managed at the upper levels by Baby Boomers, managed at the middle level by Generation-Xers and staffed by Xers and Millennials.

Each of these employee groups has been influenced by different historical factors and experiences during their formative years. The veterans went through the Great Depression and World War II; Baby Boomers were marked by Vietnam, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr., Gen-Xers grew up during the discovery of AIDS, the Shuttle Challenger explosion and the demolition of the Berlin Wall; and Millennials experienced Iran Contra, Columbine, the World Trade Center bombings and 9/11.

Because of these different experiences, the generations sometimes have a hard time seeing eye to eye. And, it is often the Baby Boomers who are having a tough time understanding the Gen-Xers primarily because the Baby Boomers must manage a younger generation with completely different ideals.

"I would have employees who would say, I can't get daycare for my kids, so I have to switch shifts. I wanted to say, 'That's not my problem,'" said Jon Hess, Undersheriff for the Kent County, Mich., Sheriff's Office, who gave a presentation on Gen-Xers for the NIC's Large Jail Network several years ago.

For Baby Boomers like Hess, who expected to pay their dues and would never have thought about changing their appointed shift for daycare reasons, these types of requests are hard to swallow.

Hess understood, though, that it was his job to figure out how to work with Gen-Xers if he was going to effectively manage them.

"When I was coming up, I had a different era of managers who would have said, 'To heck with that.' [Now] we are dealing with problems that we never thought we would have addressed," said Hess.

According to Martin, Gen-Xers entered the workplace "just as the myth of lifetime employment exploded" and were the first generation to understand that there was no longer such as thing as job security.

"They saw thousands of Baby Boomers who had already invested 15, 20, 25 years of their lives climbing the ladder, paying their dues and hoping to cash out of retirement [and then] being downsized or fired. So Gen-X quickly learned that their security lay in their own self - building career security," she said.

These experiences cause Gen-Xers to focus more on taking care of themselves and feel free to job-hop if they sense they are being treated unfairly.

"They are very cautious about investing in a relationship with an employer, especially a large institution," said Hess.

In addition, Gen-Xers are independent, they want to show they can do the job, want support rather than the sense of being checked-on and like to participate in meetings and decisions.

"They have great confidence in what they can do and you can't always provide them with the opportunities [they seek in corrections]," said Hess.

Hess said he has also learned that Gen-Xers want to work, but want to be with their children at the same time, which means requests for time off, changing shifts and flexibility.

"They were raised in a culture of immediacy. They expect everyone to respond to them and respond quickly," Hess said.

Some jails have moved to 10 and 12-hour shifts, Hess said, to give their employees more days off in a row to appease the needs of this generation.

Study Shows Trends of New Generation

These experiences follow the findings of Martin and Tulgan in their research of the workplace, Generational Shift: What We Saw at the Workplace Revolution. The study shows that today's employees --  Generation-Xers -- have less confidence in long-term rewards and greater expectations for short-term ones.

According to the study, which was conducted over a 10-year time span and included interviews with thousands of individuals, several specific trends have developed during the decade: work has become more demanding on employees, the employer-employee relationship has become less hierarchical, employers are moving away from long-term relationships, employees have less confidence in long-term rewards and greater expectations for short-term rewards, immediate supervisors are the most important people in the workplace and supervising employees now requires more time and skill on the part of managers.

According to Tulgan, author of the study report, over the last 10 years, globalization and technology have created a business environment of high-risk, erratic markets and unpredictable resource-needs.

"To remain viable, employers have been forced to adopt extremely flexible and efficient staffing practices. In turn, employees have adjusted by adopting more aggressive attitudes, expectations and behaviors," Tulgan said in the report.

Although corrections does not directly feel the ebb and flow of the financial market that Tulgan describes, these employment trends have trickled down to government agencies.

Just ask Dave Fink, Training Supervisor for the Monmouth County Sheriff's Office, which hosted a Gen-X-related training for supervisors last year.

"The good part is they are eager to learn and they are more computer savvy. On the bad end of it, they are in a rush to get to the next level. They push themselves and might make more mistakes," he said.

Elements of Tulgan's study findings mirror the characteristics of Gen-Xers:

* Less obedient to employers' rules and supervisors' instructions,
* More likely to question or challenge employment conditions and established reward structures,
* More likely to make individual requests regarding desires employment conditions and rewards,
* More obedient to employers rules and supervisors' instructions when employers promise a specific quid pro quo,
* Less likely to define success in relation to rank or seniority and more likely to define it in highly personal terms.

In addition, employees are less willing to make immediate sacrifices in return for long-term promises. Thus, given a choice, employees are more likely to prefer short-term over long-term incentives.

These short-term requests can include increases in pay, benefits and work conditions. Or, in the case of corrections, switches in shift, requests for days off or increased flexibility in schedules. The study also found that incentives for short-term rewards are more successful in maintaining productivity, quality, morale and retention.

To a corrections supervisor or manager, these trends seem familiar.

"They don't want to work holidays and nights and weekends, which is a big part of our department," said Fink.

Some agencies have tried to meet the demands of the younger employees by appeasing their desire for short-term rewards and increasing communication from the top down.

In his Gen-X presentation to other corrections administrators, Kent County's Hess identified several strategies for managing Gen-Xers and keeping their participation and morale high.

Hess suggests celebrating the successes of staff in various ways such as handshakes, email messages and certificates. And, to increase their involvement, he suggests inviting their participation in meetings, providing them additional training, giving them the opportunity to become trainers and resources to other fellow workers and instituting a suggestion box. Finally, Hess recommends that corrections managers rotate assignments in the facility frequently to keep staff interested.

"We have tried continually to give those rewards and help them by listening to their suggestions and recommendations. If there are any changes in process [that are going to occur] you need to go to the lowest denominator and get them involved," said Hess. "We have tried relentlessly to do all we can with communications and to be flexible with some of the issues."

As agencies become tuned-in to these staffing issues, the more corrections supervisors will be seeking strategies for successfully managing the new generation of workers.

Training programs, such as one developed by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections and another under development for the National Institute of Corrections hope to fill the information void for these supervisors.

Training Aims to Harmonize the Workplace

Ohio's state corrections agency has found that its training program for supervisors on Generation X has helped managers tap into their younger counterparts' creativity, improve cooperation and increase retention.

"The training has taken on a new life in the last two years as we have offered early retirement incentives. So many Baby Boomers are leaving and so many [Gen-Xers] are being promoted. There's a huge ripple. We're getting younger and younger folks in management positions," said Tracy Reveal, Superintendent of the Corrections Training Academy for the Ohio DRC.

The primary objectives of the training include identifying the differences between generations and then providing the managers with methods for communicating with each generation.

For the highly experienced veterans, Reveal said, personal and face-to-face communication works better than any other method. For Baby Boomers, they are consensus builders who like to work together in a group. Gen-Xers are independent and Millennials are hopefuls who are plugged in and logged on, but require and expect some hand-holding by their employers, Reveal said.

"The bottom line is this is about communication and knowing how to communicate with everybody else," she said.

In a similar training module being developed by the Center for Innovative Public Policy for the NIC, participants will learn to identify the different generations in the workplace, name their general characteristics, will discuss their core beliefs and values and learn how these differences show up in the workplace.

The curriculum, for example, states that Baby Boomers have a strong work ethic and think nothing of working long hours, while Gen-Xers believe the balance between work and family is essential. Thus, it is not surprising that when Gen-Xers become bosses, they will establish work-life departments to manage the conflict between the two.

Soon, the beliefs of the Millennials will make an impact in the workplace as well. They expect to change jobs and careers multiple times in their work life and value skills development as a way to ensure success.

Since each generation sees work and life through different eyes, it is important for today's correctional managers to understand the lenses that each generation uses, and, to respect those differences to improve how a facility and an agency is run.

"The biggest point here is not necessarily what we learn, but that we are trying to learn about a new generation and, recognize that there are differences in how to maintain order and safety. That's the big message here. As a supervisor you have to not worry about your own perceptions, but recognize those of the candidate in front of you," said Pulharic.

Resources:

Monmouth County, N.J., Sheriff's Office - 732-294-5901

Kent County, Mich., Sheriff's Office, Jon Hess - 616-632-6111

Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction - 614-752-1150

National Institute of Corrections www.nicic.org

Center for Innovative Public Policy - www.cipp.org