Growing up in an age when we are all largely creators as well as consumers of media, Gen Yers are unabashedly accustomed to creating on our own. And with easy and virtually free marketing via the internet, we are equally aware that what we create can get an appreciative audience beyond our friend group, town, country, even. It is perhaps not so surprising then that a whopping number of our interviewees over that past year have told us that their dream is to run a business of their own in the future. The reasons for that are plentiful, and hark back to my previous blog about the Gen Y desire to work for things greater than money, such as self-fulfillment, flexibility, social responsibility and, yes, freedom. But what is surprising is that American Gen Yers were not as keen on starting their own businesses are their European peers.

As a European raised to a large extent in the US in a family that loves America and the American Dream, I have always been told that it is on the fertile soil of the “New World” that people are driven to start ventures of their own and, significantly, that it is also on that side of the Atlantic where you are most likely to have these ventures financed. Europe, on the other hand, has always been described to me as a territory of inflexibility where breaking out on your own is complicated by high taxation and complex regulation. What a surprise it was to me, then, to hear so few of the Americans claim to want to start something on their own. Especially when compared with, frankly, a majority of the Europeans! Either this means young Europeans are big dreamers but not big doers, or that we will see a huge upswing in European entrepreneurship in the future. I cannot claim to know, but the fact is that Europe seems to be fostering its youth to think outside the professional box.

This week the European Championship in Young Entrepreneurships is being held in Stockholm and is featured in an article in Svenska Dagbladet (Swedish daily) today, July 26th. The state-funded Swedish organization Ungt Företagsamhet (Young Entrepreneurship) is organizing the event that features young entrepreneurs from all over Europe. The Finish team is exhibiting interior decorating made with recycled metals while an all girls team from Malta have created a Maltese (the language spoken by the island’s 500, 000 inhabitants) T9 dictionary for mobile phones and are currently in negotiations with mobile operators. The Swedish contribution this year is Henrik Giver’s Condom Boxer. “I think girls like it if you come well-prepared,” the young businessman says of his product, a boxer brief with a special pocket for condoms conveniently located on the front. Also on location in Stockholm are eighty observers from Canada and the United States who are there in anticipation of the first such event of its kind to be held in North America next year. The competition hints at the same thing that our interviews indicated: Europe appears ahead of American in encouraging young entrepreneurship.

The US is a pioneer society whose guiding words are freedom and opportunity. In the previous centuries, Europeans flooded American shores to create new lives for themselves, and new business ventures. Now, Europe is in many ways driving a pioneer campaign of its own: that of the European Union. European citizens have the option to study and work in over twenty countries. Meanwhile, America continues to make work vias all the more elusive even to high-skilled applicants. As Richard Florida warns in "The Flight of the Creative Class," American success is largely built on the historic ability to attract and cultivate foreign talent, and now, as the economy becomes increasingly global and so-called "creative capitals" spring up in new places on the map, that talent seems to be looking elsewhere. Perhaps it is time to speak of a European frontier? 

- Astri 

Read the full article in SVD here.

Photo by Giampaolo Squarcina on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Established Professions vs. Laissez-faire Career Progression

“Work” makes up a pretty hefty part of the “work-life” equation. It’s true, I did the math.
There are 168 hours in a week. If you follow the doctor’s orders and sleep 8 hours a day, that leaves you with 112 conscious hours a week. Oh, the possibilities! Let’s say you work a 9 to 5, and actually leave at 5. You’re middle-of-the-road superficial so, according to TIME’s “One Day in America,” it takes you 24 minutes to groom yourself for work (more if you’re a woman; that second coat of mascara doesn’t apply itself). You spend 25 minutes commuting (34.1 minutes if you live in New York City, 20.4 minutes if you live in Anchorage, Alaska). That’s about 45 hours a week of work-centric activity. Which is— drum roll, please —a full 40 percent of the time you spend awake every week. If you work 50 hours a week, that’s 50 percent of your waking hours. Eighty-hour work weeks? That’s a whopping 71 percent.

It’s no wonder, then, that Generation Yers are concerned— panicked, even —about what career to choose. When we asked over 100 students and young professionals what their dream jobs were, we got a plethora of responses. Everything from engineer d’affaires (“it’s, uh, how you say, like a businessman engineer”) to a professional dancer; from a columnist for The New Yorker (quite a lot of those, actually; good luck with that) to the President’s Chief of Staff.

Of the people we interviewed, the least stressed Gen Yers seem to be the ones going into well-established professions (doctors, lawyers, engineers). You have a path, you have a purpose, you know that there’s a paycheck at the end of the rainbow and health care, too. Our future engineer d’affaires, for example, is Philippe, a strikingly handsome 22-year-old Parisian. He studies— you guessed it —engineering at Institut Supérieur d'Electronique de Paris (ISEP). He’s also a sales manager at Junior ISEP, a consulting company run entirely by ISEP students. Philippe appears ready to climb a possibly long, but surely fruitful, career ladder. And, thanks to Junior ISEP, he already gets to do what he wants to do in life.

In France, students choose “majors” in high school, after which they have to go to preparatory schools for even more specialization if they want to go to a Grande École— and who doesn’t like the sound of that? The French higher education system, like most in Europe, is far more specialized than the American system. But even if you’re an American studying liberal arts— unspecialized by design —you can still choose a well-traversed professional path.

Peyton, a junior at a New England liberal arts school, majored in Philosophy and sees law school as a “natural progression.” His dad is a lawyer, but he says he wants to be a lawyer despite his father’s influence: “he practiced the worst law you can practice: bankruptcy law. He was good at it, but I don’t think it was as fulfilling as he wanted it to be.” As Astri discussed in her last blog, Gen Yers seek fulfillment from their employment (and rightfully so, since they may dedicate up to 70 percent of their lives to it). Ergo, no boring bankruptcy law for Peyton. He’s looking forward to being an entertainment lawyer “without any moral conundrums, who can sleep at night and do really interesting, absorbing work with people in Hollywood and actors on Broadway.”  

Unlike Phillipe and Peyton, however, a great many of our interviewees didn’t have clear career ambitions yet, and some were actively trying to avoid traditional paths. Ryan, a graduating senior at an “elite” US college, would prefer, in fact, to aggressively traverse roads much less traveled as a competitive mountain biker— his true passion. But Ryan feels others might look down on him for choosing athletics, and he wants to put his Geography degree to work as well: “I find myself struggling at times about what I should do after college versus what I want to do. And how to best match those up.”

Lucky for Ryan, he’s living in a wondrous wireless world. A few months after our interview, Ryan wrote me an email to report that he landed a job with a wind energy development company. “Aside from being fun work directly related to the Geography major, the job is mobile, so I can take it anywhere I go as long as I can get an internet connection.  It's offered me the chance to travel all over the place and devote a bunch of time to training for this race season.” So it appears Ryan hit the post-grad jackpot.

Ryan's got it all. For now. The company he works for is on the verge of selling to a larger European owner, so Ryan isn’t really sure how long he'll get to keep his job. In several ways, Ryan's story exemplifies both the possibilities and the drawbacks of today's world. We are living in the information age and with that comes a delightful assortment of innovations and possibilities. But some sociologists also refer to this period as “the risk society.” In The Consequences of Modernity theorist extraordinaire Anthony Giddens argues “modernity…brings uncertainty to the very mode of existence.” A little dramatic, sure, but it rings true, doesn't it? Will my job be there next month? Will a faceless multi-national take over? How does the internet work, anyway (tubes, anyone?)?

And then there is personal uncertainty. Which for self-absorbed people like myself, is even worse. Where should I live? Does my first job matter? And, my all-time favorite: What should I really do with my life?

At the time of our interview, Catherine, one of those gorgeous hipster-chic types (damn them!), was just weeks from college graduation. Her plan? “For right now, just something that pays my rent and food and lets me live in NYC for a little, while I figure out the rest of my life.” I really hope she figures it out. If not, there’s always law school.   

- Vetta

ladder photo by squishy, tubes photo by  bithead on flickr.com under creative commons license.  

also, in case i did the math wrong: please don't judge.  

 We’ve insisted before that Gen Y wants to work for more than money. Now it is time to give you some backing to our claims.

While interviewing over 100 young people in five countries (USA, Spain, France, Sweden and Russia), we have found that many Gen Yers who are in the professional world staring at excel spreadsheets are actually longing for creative jobs or careers for the common good. José, a 29 year-old Madrileño who works for a large European telecom company, begins by telling us he is reasonably happy in his position. The work environment is friendly. He can’t complain about the pay. But as José becomes increasingly comfortable with us and our prodding questions, his true sentiments come out: “really, to be honest with myself, I'm not passionate about it…I would prefer of course to negotiate peace in the Middle East than a contract for my company.” This may sound like youthful blasé, but when we ask him what his dream job is, he blushes and says, “something that has some social impact.” Maybe it doesn’t have to be bringing peace to the Middle East, as long as it is, “something that helps people, which is not what I am doing now.”

Jack, a 23 year-old from Cambridge, MA, has a father who “never did anything that he was really passionate about…he's planning to when he retires.” Jack himself seems to dread a similar fate. While he works as a research analyst in New York to pay off his college loans, he intends on staying there for max three years. What he really wants to do is be a journalist and get into the independent music scene. Katie, a fiercely sharp 25-year old from Manhattan, realized her prestigious investment-banking job was a “huge mistake” after the first day: “I just didn’t want to stare at a computer all day.” She quit and took an enormous pay cut to work on documentary films because it allows her creative freedom and the ability to “have control of my time.”

Many students expressed a similar desire to find work after university that gives them more than a good paycheck. Frederic, who studies public policy at the prestigious Sciences Politiques in Paris, wants, “an employer who could bring some sense into my life. I want to feel as though I am serving the common good, or being useful in some way.” He adds that he doesn’t think he is alone in feeling like this. According to Frederic, there is a “big trend in the workplace” of employers finding ways to encourage public service. “That can mean allowing them (employees) to take some days off to work in charity, to go on some humanitarian mission. I know that for now it is pretty uncommon, but I think it is growing and hopefully it will become bigger. That should be encouraged.” Reimer, a 21-year old college senior from Brooklyn, NY, echoes his French peer’s sentiment, “My dream job would be something centered around the new idea of social entrepreneurship. If I could get a job with a business where I could make money as well as help people.”

"they were willing to create a policy, up front, that encouraged that kind of behavior"

Wanting their work to have a larger social impact seems to be one big Gen Y desire. Another is to free themselves from what they see as the shackles of the office. “It would be even better if I could somehow not go into work, physically, every day. If I could work from home for a day or two during the week,” Reimer says. Bill, a 24 year-old Amherst graduate working as an analyst at a small economic consultant firm in New York City, agrees. The number one benefit that would make an employer attractive to him is, “significant allowances for work/life balance: significant vacation time, leniency towards working from home. I would be willing to compromise that for a short period of time for money, but it would have to be a lot of money.” In fact, time and freedom is so important to him that he chose his first job based on it. The principals of his firm broke out from larger firms to create a new culture that would encourage “a significant amount of free time to be outside of the office not doing work-related things.” Among the benefits employees at Bill’s firm enjoy are lengthy vacation, the ability to work from home and a general atmosphere of acceptance when it comes to personal issues that may arise.  “That is one of the things, truthfully, that attracted me to this job; the fact that they were willing to create a policy, up front, that encouraged that kind of behavior.”

Sverker, a 25 year-old soon-to-be graduate of the Stockholm School of Economics, has accepted a job at consulting firm that has made an explicit effort to profile itself as “human.” Sverker was lured by the promise of a good work environment, fewer hours and less travel than at traditional consulting companies. He says that, “more or less everyone at the firm has families with children. They’re able to attract the best people from the good firms because of that. Because you’re able to prioritize your family without having to go down in competence, clients or programs.” Sverker is not looking to have a family any time soon, but he says “it’s better to start at a consulting firm where you feel like you can stay at for a long time…with other places I didn’t feel like that.”  

Sandra, a 23 year-old a college senior from New Jersey, believes there is a huge shift going on in the “system.” She claims that “we’re all becoming a little more creative” and “we’re not all getting corporate jobs.” Instead, Sandra thinks that Gen Yers are “all kind of working for ourselves a bit more.” Why? “I think we’re increasingly being encouraged to go for our dreams and not go for 100,000 dollars a year.” Creativity is big according to Sandra, but so is having a flexible schedule. “I just don’t know a lot of people who are really into the 9 to 5 thing,” Sandra says and suggests that companies would do well to offer their employees more flexible hours. Others, like Greg, a 29 year-old computer programmer from Moscow, didn’t wait to get an offer; he straight out demanded it: “When I started working, I asked for specific things. I work from 8 to 4, without lunch. So I have an eight hour day, after which I leave and engage in my other interests.”

"So you never wonder: What do I want? You always wonder: What can I get?”

We have found that, in general, young Europeans seem to have thought more carefully about what they are looking for in a job, and they also make more demands, than their American peers. As Sheryl, a 20 year-old college junior from Queens, NY, told us, “I have never actually thought about what I wanted from my employer because it is always so assumed that it is in their hands. So you never wonder: What do I want? You always wonder: What can I get?”

If American Gen Yers want as much from their jobs as they appear to, maybe it is time they started asking for it. One major lesson that we have learned by speaking to budding as well as seasoned professionals over the past year is that it’s your own responsibility to ask yourself what you want out of your professional life— in the short-term and in the long-term. Only when you ask yourself the right questions will you find the answer for how to get there.

Wherever “there” is to you, if you belong to Generation Y, our research indicates that it is likely to be a place that offers fulfilling work, social responsibility, creativity, flexibility and independence. We have found that all of those things top Gen Y’s professional wish-list. Maybe it’s not always all about the money after all.  

- Astri

Whiteboard photo by programwitch on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Money photo by TW Collins on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Gen Y's Immense Social Capital 

There is no doubt about it: Generation Y is an exceptionally social generation. Yes, humans are a social species and people have loved to connect with other people throughout the ages. That is no different today than at any other point in history. What is different about Gen Y is that, with the influx of mobile technology and social networking sites dominating the web, we are more likely than ever to keep in touch with the people we meet.

My mother studied in France after high school. That was in the 1960’s, long before cell phones and the Internet were ubiquitous. She keeps in touch with one person from that time, a man that she dated briefly and who has now evolved into a retired bank CEO and intellectual eccentric. Two of my four sisters have spent up to a year living with this man and his family in their Paris apartment while studying abroad. I shared a bottle of wine and a masochistically satisfying crise-de-foie with his wife while I was in Paris interviewing young people for The Lattice Group. Afterwards, he took me on an historical tour of the neighborhood.

My mother’s steadfast relationship with this man from her youth has without doubt yielded countless benefits for her and her family, but this kind of friendship maintenance of yore is also demanding and time-consuming. You have to call each other regularly, send Christmas cards and birthday notes. You have to make an effort to update all of your acquaintances’ many changing numbers and addresses. But what if you lose that over-stuffed address book? The contacts are lost into the abyss. Sure, you can track down your closest friends, but what about the bow-tie-wearing hedge fund manager you shared that fascinating conversation over bouillabaisse with two years ago?

To me, a restless Gen Yer, this sounds like a really big effort. I am terrible at keeping in touch with people in the traditional way, and have gently (or not so gently) let acquaintances drift off my radar at a rapid pace.

Until…Facebook.     

Suddenly, not only my friends and acquaintances, but also interesting people I’ve met once or twice, are at my very fingertips. I don’t even have to call or write them to find out that they have changed numbers, cities, girlfriends, cats. They readily tell me so themselves by changing their status, or the details of their profile. There is no longer any excuse to lose touch with anyone. Now, you won’t even miss out on what used to be reserved for the most intimate of friendship circles. Just last night, Vetta and I put on our detective hats after spotting an unusually shiny ring on a far-away college classmate’s left hand in a Facebook photo album. Within minutes, we knew that she was engaged, where she had been proposed to and what dress she had been wearing when it happened. As for the fellow, he wasn’t in either of our personal networks but through his fiancée’s photos and profile, we could discern that he was a law student, had an annoying tendency to write sappy comments and liked double-stuffed Oreos. That’s good market profiling, right there.

This kind of information is not only handy for late-night stalking; it is a fantastic resource for career-building. Go onto any random person’s Facebook profile (or Myspace or Linked-in or any other equivalent) and you are likely to see that they have literally hundreds of “friends” listed in their personal networks. What a goldmine! Gen Y promises to have enormous social capital to throw around as they begin their professional lives, and that has the potential to translate into equally large business capital. Take our own modest endeavor: The Lattice Group. We post blogs and updates on social networking sites daily. It takes us little time and it reaps generous results: literally thousands of visits to our website and an immeasurable rise in awareness about our project, with hardly any budget or maintenance at all.

Click, click, bingo.

We recently posted a guest blog about Networking by Wharton Business School student and Lattice Group board member Sarah Shaikh. She says that, “a large part of being a successful leader or achieving high goals is recognizing your weaknesses and then finding people to help you patch up those holes— only then can you fully realize your potential!” With the Internet and its proliferation of social networking sites, those hole-patching people will be easier to find.

The larger repercussions of how Gen Y leverages its immense social capital in an increasingly digital world will be interesting to follow. I know I’ll be following it. On Facebook.

- Astri 

Photo on Flickr by luc legay under Creative Commons License.  

Sometimes I feel as though I live in an alternate reality (granted, I am in Sweden right now, so mabye I am). Why this new bout of frustration and feelings of aliendom? An article in the July 14th Times Online entitled, “Equality Laws are now ‘holding women back.’” Apparently, Britain is extending its paid maternity leave from nine months to a year. This is supposed to do a service to women. What it really does, according to Nicola Brewer, the chief executive of Equalities and Human Rights Convention, is make them less attractive candidates for jobs and promotions. If you hire them, chances are they’ll leave anyway, right? Yes, right. A fertile woman with a new ring on her finger might be the last person I’d want to hire if I knew that I had to give her one year of paid leave when she starts having babies. Nothing strange about that.

What is strange is that the law granting lengthy maternity leave is categorized as an “equality law.” There is nothing equal about it. Not only does it, as I think Brewer correctly assesses, disadvantage women by making them less attractive for hire, it discriminates unequivocally against men. And British fathers apparently have the least equal rights in all of Europe. Their two weeks of leave are measly in comparison to the mother’s 52. So, forget “equality laws.” These are laws perpetuating inequality. And, as Brewer notes, extending the exclusive leave for mothers had, “entrenched the assumption that only mothers brought up children and failed to hasten a social revolution where both parents were equally responsible for caring for their family.” A comment by Rory Ridly-Duff underlines the point, “The headline could have read 'family policy holding men back at home', rather than women at work.”

I couldn’t agree more when Brewer argues for fathers to have the same right to paid leave as mothers. Now that is an equality law. And, only when both men and women are likely to go on equally long parental leave will they become equal candidates in the eyes of employers. A truly equal hiring scenario is one where an employer looks at two CVs and doesn’t consider the parental leave issue, since both the male and female candidates may take as much time off.

BINGO! How can this be breaking news? Isn’t that obvious? Granted, even in Sweden, where men and women have equal rights to leave, women tend to take the longer time off. But that is changing. In the interviews that we conducted with young Swedish men they, across the board, claimed to want to split the 18 months of parental leave equally with their spouse when they have children in the future. If word leads to action, our generation of Swedes may finally reach a point where equality laws actually lead to equality.

Again, I realize I have kept my head buried deep in Lattice and Swedish sand for a while now, and may have forgotten how the rest of the world views parenting— or should I just say mothering?

But come on, guys. Wake up and smell the formula.

- Astri

Photo on Flickr by vonbergen.net under Creative Commons License. 

Today's esteemed guest blogger, Sarah Shaikh, may look as sweet as pie, but don't be fooled— this girl is a fierce clandestine networker. We once witnessed her chat up a Class of  '47 alum at a reception: they bonded over his black pug, and minutes later she emerged with a yachting invitation— turns out the man owns a marina— for all six of us, her good-for-nothing friends who had nervously crowded around the cheese plates.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that Sarah happens to be beautiful, brainy, and big-hearted. She holds a BA in Economics from Middlebury College, has worked as a Financial Analyst for Time Inc, serves on the Young Leadership Council of Business Council for Peace, and as a Board Member of The Lattice Group (we know a good thing when we see it). Her latest coup: starting an MBA program at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania this fall. After tackling B-school, Sarah hopes to combine her experience in finance with her interest in the non-profit world to create a more efficient industry. In her spare time —which she swears she has— Sarah enjoys trying new foods, fashion, cooking, running, and staying informed about the world around her.

Read and learn, folks. The lady's a pro.

Network Your Way to the Top

A new poll by The Opinion Research Corporation finds that more than two-thirds of Americans support a law that would guarantee paid vacations for American workers.  

The poll found that 69% of Americans say they would support a paid vacation law, with the largest percentage of respondents favoring a law guaranteeing three weeks vacation or more. Americans under 35 (83%), African-Americans (89%), Hispanic-Americans (82%), and low-income Americans (82%) were the strongest supporters of such a law, as were residents of the Northeast (75%) and the South (72%).  75% of women and 63% of men support a paid vacation law.  74% of families with children support such a law. Every demographic showed majority support for a law, and overall, only 27% of those polled were opposed to a paid vacation law.

In a country as diverse as the United States, it’s painfully rare that a clear majority agrees on anything. That almost 70% of Americans want paid vacation leave should send a pretty clear message to our elected officials. In a democracy, that’s how it’s supposed to work, right? That is, of course, unless special interest groups and businesses matter more to elected officials than the rest of us. More probably, the former have made their views known, through lobbyists and the like. Now, it’s time that everyone else makes their voices heard. You can start by going to www.right2vacation.org.  

My final question is this: who the hell are the 27% of people who oppose paid vacation? Okay, one more question: Why? Dearest Americans, isn't it time to drop the whole “corporate mystique” thing (that whatever is good for business, is good for the individual)? Let's take a page from our European brethern and admit that working so much that you’re in poor mental and physical health is not good for you or for business. I’m as big a fan of the Protestant work ethic as the next guy, but I’m an even bigger believer in “diminished returns.”

- Vetta 

This is a brief add-on to my previous blog about vacation time. In “Time for Time Off” I wrote that many European countries give generous vacation policies for their workers. I highlighted Sweden for all of its bathrobe-toting, beach-lounging, gardening CEOs that leave their boardrooms for over five weeks each year to get some well-deserved down-time. Well, I think it is time that France got a hurrah as well.

Yesterday, my very good friend gave me a ring. He is working in the marketing department of a large corporation in Paris on a short contract. While working for only 8 months at the company, he is given six weeks of vacation. Six! Even I, vacation-lover as I am, was a little flabbergasted. Here is a young fellow working on a short contract, and he cashes in more vacation than most people can hope to get in their most senior years of working.

I know, I know. Many of you are probably getting worked up and ready to write me to say that this is why the French economy is slow and the American one is a powerhouse. Even I can concede that six weeks off on an eight-month contract is a tad exaggerated. But, the fundamental fact remains the same: in Europe even the corporate world recognizes that vacation is a necessary part of being a good employer, and of getting good work back from their employees.

I’m not saying give everyone six weeks off on their first year of working. But I am saying that the fact that employers in the States are not required by law to offer any vacation at all is equally preposterous.

- Astri 

Why Sharing It All Turns Me On

Turn Astri loose in an airport bookstore and you can be sure she will return with the most cringe-worthy publication imaginable: “The Price of Motherhood,” for our initial flight across the Atlantic, “Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office” on our way to Spain, “The Feminine Mistake” for the flight to Moscow. Though it made my deep-seated insecurity that full-frontal feminism is just so unattractive instantly resurface— she was sitting next to me! everyone could see the cover!— I admit that, behind closed doors, I read them all. I even learned a thing or two.

Still, when Astri came back from a recent trip to New York with Caitlin Flanagan’s “To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife” in tow, I figured she had completely lost her mind. She had gone to New York to visit her boyfriend, a beloved friend of mine and the scion of a traditional, Catholic family. Had she decided she was going to give up her own numerous professional ambitions and become the bun-making matron of her secret fantasy? Was I going to have to kill “Bob,” a dear— but ultimately sacrificable— friend?

As usual, Astri recited tid-bits from the damn book every couple of seconds, entirely unable to contain her excitement (why do you Americans throw such lavish weddings?! sexless marriages?? nooooooooooo!!). As usual, I eventually caved and picked up the book— now full of asterisks and underlines and exclamation points— myself.

I’m about half-way through with Flanigan’s supposedly modern manifesto and I must say it’s not all bad. I wholeheartedly appreciate her sobering assessment that a formal white wedding is a contemporary invention, much like Valentine’s Day, where merchants of all sorts (wedding planners, jewelers, that ubiquitous Martha Stewart character) hope to cash in on class confusion. Forget the stretch Hummer limo and ice sculptures! I won’t be duped into debt for “The Philiadelphia Story and The Wedding Singer served up together in one curious and costly buffet.”

As a social observer, Flanigan certainly has her moments— and as a writer, she’s incessantly entertaining— but I would say that her commentary doesn’t apply to the younger generations (me + you = Gen Y). She argues:

“It turns out that the ‘traditional’ marriage, which we’ve all been so happy to annihilate, had some pretty good provisions for many of today’s most stubborn marital problems, such as how to combine work and parenthood, and how to keep the springs of the marriage bed in good working order. What’s interesting about the sex advice given to married women of earlier generations is that it proceeds from the assumption that in a marriage, a happy sex life depends upon orderly and successful housekeeping.”

Flanigan insists that this “orderly and successful housekeeping” is within the rightful purview of the wife, not because men should expect wives to do the housework, but because it’s deplorably unsexy for a man to: “I might be quietly thrilled if my husband decided to forgo his weekly tennis game so that he could alphabetize the spices and scrub the lazy Susan, but I would hardly consider it an erotic gesture,” Flanigan asserts, confident we readers are begrudgingly but affirmatively shaking our collective head.

Speak for yourself, lady! Are you crazy?? If my boyfriend told me he was going to skip watching football for the umpteenth night this week, and scrub anything (I’m not entirely sure what a Lazy Susan is) instead, he would get laid in a heartbeat! Because, above all, work-life balance turns me on. And, since American women still do 80 percent of the childcare and two-thirds of the housework, demonstrating a willingness to do those ultimately time-consuming daily household chores, without pleading or prodding, means that I might eventually get some- work-life balance, that is.

Fellows: in time, your hot body will succumb to gravity and beer (it always does, ladies), and even that charming sense of humor will get old. But the piece of mind that comes from knowing you’ll be willing to share the workload at home will last forever. And that, my friends (Ms. Flanigan, included), is so very, extraordinarily, mind-blowingly hot.  

- Vetta 

 When 20-somethings go neo-traditional...in reverse 

For the next few weeks, my significant other is working as a counselor at a camp for children with disabilities. He spends the days teaching kids— kids who too seldom have the opportunity to just be kids— how to play Texas Hold ‘Em, helps them dress and go to the bathroom, referees cake-baking contests and hockey games, and then plans the next days activities well into the wee morning hours. The man is a bloody saint. And how shall I reward him for his saintliness? Why, talk about him behind his back, of course! You see, at present “Sven” (ha! I wish!) doesn’t have access to the internet, which means that he will likely never read this blog.

Before starting his current job, "Sven," still a student at the youthful-by-European-standards age of 25, was enjoying that glorious period of time perched between the end of the spring semester and the start of a summer job. For him, it was rightfully a time filled with seemingly infinite EUFA2008 football games, early-afternoon wake-up times, and mid-afternoon naps. I, on the other hand, was in a less-enviable place: squeezed between the time I had funding to do fascinating research, and the rapidly approaching time said funding ran out and results were demanded.  I was in panic-mode, and it wasn’t pretty.

The ensuing week is what I naively imagine it must be like when you are the primary breadwinner (traditionally, a man) with a stay at home partner (traditionally, a woman): fantastic, unfair, and miserable— in that order.

“This is fantastic!”

Everyday, I would wake up to the alarm, slide out of bed— pretending to be careful, but secretly hoping he would wake up— and get ready for the working world. Never mind that the “working world” was Lola’s, an underwhelming café barely two blocks away, and that I didn’t have to be there at any particular time. I was going for his pity, and I was going for broke.

“Sven,” kind soul that he is, bought into my act unconditionally. By the time I was out of the shower, he was up, drizzling walnuts and raisins on my yogurt, pouring me a glass of orange juice, and trying to busy himself quietly as I read my email and mindlessly ate the breakfast he made me— the breakfast I could have easily made myself.  

There seemed to be no end to his kindness. He appeared downright pained that he couldn’t do my work for me. For lunch, he made me tasty chevre-tomatoe-whole-grain sandwiches, so I didn’t have to pay for an overpriced one at unimpressive Lola’s. He readily offered back-rubs and did my errands (like return a rain jacket I was thrilled with, until I realized it didn’t have a hood). He praised my work, and insisted that I shouldn’t feel badly for doing less of the practical things; after all, he was home with nothing to do.

“This is bordering on indentured servitude…”

Slowly, I let “Sven” take care of more and more things around the apartment. Eager to do the laundry? Great. Don’t mind taking care of the dishes…again? Fabulous.

Then one day “Sven” called my cell phone, asking when I would be home for dinner. A quick, devious equation ran through my head: I could come home at 5:00, rummage through the root vegetables at the grocery store, help make dinner, and eat by 7:00. Or, I could return to the apartment at 6:45, just in time to put out the plates and silverware before sitting down to a warm, home-cooked meal. My work was “important”— “Sven” had said so himself— and I’m stressed, and he wouldn’t mind. Besides, he’s a much better cook. I’m practically a liability in the kitchen, everyone agrees.

It took all of the willpower and self-shaming entreaties I could muster to pack up my traveling office (beat-up MacBook, ancient cell phone), pay for my seven coffee refills, and meet “Sven” at the grocery store.

“Wow, I'm kind of miserable?”

Sure, I may have felt guilty for letting “Sven” take care of all the day-to-day details, but all that free-time it granted me did wonders for my work, right? Wrong. I felt such pressure to justify how much he was doing at home, that I was actually nearly paralyzed at work. Just when I needed to concentrate most, all I could think about was how I wanted to think about something else. And I couldn’t take a break and actually enjoy his company because, after all, I was supposed to be too busy for anything but work.

What’s more, this little experiment lasted for just a week, and I’m ashamed to admit that even in that short time I was already starting to take “Sven’s” hard work around the house for granted— who has time to notice that the bed is made, the floor is mopped, and the dishes are put away, anyway? If you can turn off the guilt (and it gets easier with each passing day, let alone every passing year) or if you are blissfully ignorant that you should feel guilty, having a stay-at-home partner could be great. But even then, you are subsequently relegated to one sphere, the work sphere, and you better make sure you can deliver there. Personally, I don’t need that kind of pressure.

When the tables were turned and “Sven” went back to work, I can hardly describe how happy I was to have a better half that truly does half of the housework. By then I had given up on Lola’s and was working from the kitchen table. I could have easily gone to the grocery store before “Sven” came back from work, made dinner even. But the idea of lugging potatoes around by myself and peeling them alone in the kitchen, made me want to gouge my eyes out after a long day. Instead, I waited for “Sven” to come home, groped him as we walked to the market, and we made dinner together, in our tiny kitchen, singing along to Lykke Li in our mutually tone-deaf way. I’ll take that kind of partnership over a stay-at-home spouse or a primary breadwinner any day.

- Vetta 

Vacation...Where Can I Get Some? 

A couple of weeks ago The Lattice Group team was speaking to a young gentleman in Moscow who works for East Capital, which describes itself as “a leading independent asset manager specializing in Eastern European financial markets.” East Capital is based in Stockholm, and I recall the surge of exhilaration when the interviewee in question told me as much. Yes, he did work for a Swedish company. And yes, it was very different than working for a Russian company. Offhandedly, he mentioned an emphasis on horizontal hierarchies, parental leave (note: for fathers as well as mothers) and extensive vacation time.

Today, I happened across an article in Svenska Dagbladet (Swedish daily) with a large picture of a sharp-eyed woman and the heading: “Looking East.” It was an article about, low and behold, East Capital and it’s CEO, French-born Karine Hirn (globetrotter, multi-linguist, businesswoman and mother). Hirn founded the company in 1997, and since then it has become the largest company managing funds in Eastern Europe. Very Lattice-like, the two journalists ask: “How do you balance your job as a CEO with your life as a mother of small children?” Her answer? “Sweden is one of the few countries in which one can combine a good family life with an exciting job.” Perhaps, thanks partly to that good old extensive vacation time.

Vetta and I are currently compiling our Lattice Group research while romping in the rustic fields of southern Sweden, seemingly far from the management of any kinds of funds, besides perhaps the daily ice-cream fund. But not so. I met my neighbor in his bathrobe on the way to the harbor for a swim. He is the CEO of a large Nordic recruiting company. I called one of our recent interview subjects, CEO of Christies Sweden, only to find that she was answering her cell phone in a small fishing village a couple of miles away. I sent a business email and received an automated response that said: “I am out of office until 11th of August.” The country is on vacation. Long vacation.

How quickly one forgets. My sister and her husband just left to return to their demanding jobs in New York after an oh-so-short stay in Sweden. This was their vacation for the year. Two weeks, that’s what you get. Two weeks???? When in an American context, discussing job options with college friends (or trying to find a time to see my boyfriend who could not get even a single vacation day), two weeks sounded desirable, enviable even. But now, several weeks into our Swedish sejour, two weeks sounds impossible, barbaric. Isn’t there something in some human rights treaty about that? No? Really…? Oh.

Well, it is in the laws of many European nations. Sweden and France guarantee five weeks minimum- to factory workers and CEOs alike. Even Russia gives you four. And the USA? In America a company doesn’t, by law, have to give you any. Not a single day.

Vacation isn’t all about putting up your feet. It is about re-connecting with family and friends, taking a breather, yes, but also about re-charging your batteries so that you can return to work with new energy. Ready to flex your creative muscles. Ready to give back more to that employer and that market and that larger economy than you could have if you are worked to the bone, haggard and drained and torn between everyone and everything and their demands.

A lot of the high power individuals we have interviewed over the past couple of months have mentioned the importance of knowing what you want and going for it in a strategic, and straight-forward way. Not being afraid of saying what you want. Even of demanding what you want (with due respect, of course).

Well, I hereby state, with all due respect to anyone who cares to listen, that: I need at least five weeks of vacation a year. Bottom line. I need that for my personal sanity, but also for my ability to produce creative output, to achieve and excel in my work.

Apparently, in Sweden, I can be a CEO and still do that.

- Astri 

Life is full of coincidences. They usually and probably don’t mean anything at all. Except, of course, when they happen to you.

Very recently, I got an inexplicable urge to watch Sex and the City. Though I had long since decided that all of these women are laughable caricatures of human beings (and especially of “modern” women), I couldn’t help myself. I mean, Aidan is just so cute and Mr. Big is just so awful and Carrie is just so well-dressed. The episode I randomly watched centered around Charlotte’s decision to give up her incredible gallery job to focus on (not being but, hopefully) becoming a mother and curing pediatric AIDS via a kick-ass fundraiser.

Yesterday, my dear friend Will sent me an Atlantic Monthly article called “I Choose My Choice!” by Sandra Tsing Loh. This being the phrase that Charlotte somewhat pathetically clings to when defending her decision to quit, or dare-I-say “opt-out,” of her unbelievably great job. The article makes a compelling (though now somewhat redundant) claim that the “fruits of the feminist revolution” are “sisterhood, empowerment, and eight hours a day in a cubicle.” Better reading, playing, and listening to NPR all day than toiling 80 hours a week in a boring and hated job. Who can argue with that?

Linda Hirshman. In “Homeward Bound,” Hirshman also references Charlotte’s “I chose my choice!” hysteria. Unlike Loh, Hirshman unapologetically condemns Charlotte. Her argument (not entirely unique, either) is that Charlotte’s “choice” is no “choice” at all: “‘Choice feminism’ claims that staying home with the kids is just one more feminist option. Funny that most men rarely make the same ‘choice.’ Exactly what kind of choice is that?”

What kind of choice, indeed? I have my opinions, but, in a rare act of self-restraint, I’m going to let you draw your own conclusions.

Read these two articles and see where you stand. Write in, while you’re at it, because I’m desperately curious to know.

I Choose My Choice

Homeward Bound 

- Vetta

You've Got Mail. Check It. Now. 

There was a great little story in The New York Times on June 23rd that brings up the case of a scuffle between ABC and some of the writers that work there. The question at hand? Whether answering emails on your BlackBerry from home constitutes work that you should be paid for or not. The Writer's Guild is making a stir because they are desperate to avoid what they call "the 24/7 workplace." The article is small, taking up only a couple of inches at the bottom of Monday's Media page, but the message within is huge. It pinpoints what is perhaps one of the greatest dilemmas of the present moment, when it comes to working and living. Is work becoming inseparable from life? Are we doomed to always be connected to our jobs?

On the one hand, we here at The Lattice Group are huge proponents of working from home, telecommuting, and, above all, flexibility (I am writing this from a temporary home in New York while communicating with current headquarters in Stockholm). Flexibility and freedom are possible in our day and age thanks largely to the gadgets that keep us wired and reachable at all times. Yes, you can work from your sailboat— but you are still responsible for responding promptly to work-related inquiries sent your way. And that can be the downside. Once you start being wired all the time, you are suddenly also on-call all the time. While the gadget opened the door to flexibility in the first place, it may also have drawn the curtain on being “free.” When work ceases to be contained to a place and a time, it commences to be everywhere, all the time.

On the other hand, this may be an inevitable development of our time even for people without an explicit desire for “flexibility.” The fact is that the globalized economy is increasingly competitive. And the Western economy is increasingly talent-based and creative. For a large part of the population, especially the college-educated segment that The Lattice Group focuses on, work will never mean punching in on a clock. Work will be an intrinsic part of you, all the time. Defined by what you think and create. Even by what you write in a facebook message or a gchat.

The Writer’s Guild is fighting back against a 24/7 workplace, but they may be too late. For many of us, the 24/7 workplace is already an irreversible reality. Gen Y is the first generation to be completely reared in an age of constant accessibility. We are the guinea pigs for this human experiment under the banner of the BlackBerry. The question is: what kind of a generation of children will we, as always-on-parents, raise?

- Astri 

Read the full NYTimes article here.  

Photo by bhikku on Flickr under Creative Commons License. 

Colleges Move Toward Encouraging Alternative Career Paths 

Walking in mid-town on a steamy Friday afternoon, the sidewalk transformed into an intricate, multiple-lane highway of speed-racing pedestrians skirting around wide-eyed, loitering tourists with irritated grunts, I took a moment to observe the business-clad walkers in the fast-lane. There were penguin-suit strutters with cufflinks gleaming, swaying khaki-legs topped with white button-downs and chunky loafers, black A-line skirts, elegant silk-mix wrap-dresses, and the endless click-click-click of a thousand appropriate-height kitten-heels. Here were the aspiring powerhouses of New York City. The early-to-work and late-home summer toilers of the white-collar persuasion, consuming and marketing goods for others to consume, washing down their eleven-hour days with venti-iced-non-fat-lattes. What do they all have in common? They are twenty-something and relatively new to the corporate cradle.

Where were they before the suits replaced the shorts in their tiny downtown apartments? Most likely, they were drinking Bud Light in dorm rooms, running the Earth Club after Sociology class and lounging on the manicured greens of their Ivy League or NESCAC lawns in-between. At their elite colleges, these youngsters often dreamed of making a difference in the world. Of solving climate change, curing AIDS, reforming the public education system. I know this much is true because I recently walked across the stage to retrieve the laminated diploma from just such an esteemed institution for higher learning. But, when leaping out of the college bubble and into the so-called “real world,” these dreams are more often than not replaced by new visions of large paychecks, extravagant company dinners and, well, prestige. An interesting New York Times article from June 23rd discusses the move from Ivy to Wall— Street, that is.

Pouring into Wall Street and Shying Away from Public Service

In “Big Paycheck or Service? Students are Put to the Test,” Sara Rimer writes about how top-level students from competitive universities are being recruited for jobs in corporate America. Financial services and management consulting top the lists, with 20% of the 2008 Harvard graduating class entering these occupations alone. And I see why. The online application process through the universities’ career services websites are relatively painless, and, as I can attest from my own experience, these are the fields that are highlighted and pushed to the greatest extent in those turbulent job-searching months as the curtain begins to fall over your undergraduate years. But, according to Rimer, though colleges seem to encourage students to apply for these kinds of jobs (my friends and I certainly felt that way), they may actually be beginning to resist the trend. Of course, the colleges have a lot to gain from their graduates going into lucrative careers (time to give back to your alma mater, anyone?), but producing some world-changing freedom-fighters, politicians, artists and humanitarians would arguably also be a nice detail for the alumni catalogue.

Colleges are beginning to do their bit to encourage alternative career paths, as they realize that many top students who would otherwise contribute to, say, public service are joining hedge funds instead. At Harvard, for instance, Professor Howard Gardener is teaching “reflection” seminars to encourage students to really think through ”the connection between their educations and aspirations.” The effort has gained wide support at Harvard, with new president, Drew Gilpin Faust, joining in. She made “the topic the cornerstone of her address to seniors during commencement week. Dr. Faust noted that in the past year, whenever she has met with students, their first question has always been the same: ‘Why are so many of us going to Wall Street?’” Why indeed.

Yes, those Loans Have to be Paid, but What if Colleges Would do it for You...? 

The article cites security as a major motivator for young people going for the corporate career options. In answer to this, Rimer writes that, “Tufts announced that it would pay off college loans for graduates who chose public service jobs. And officials at Harvard, Penn, Amherst and a number of other colleges say one reason they have begun emphasizing grants instead of loans in financial aid is so students do not feel pressured by their debts to pursue lucrative careers.”

Even Barack Obama is getting on the bandwagon. In his Weslyan University commencement speech this year, he “sounded an impassioned call to public service, and warned that the pursuit of narrow self-interest — ‘the big house and the nice suits and the other things that our money culture says you should buy ... betrays a poverty of ambition.’”

I understand the lure of security and the promise of corporate cushioning for the future. The world can be a frightening place. And a mountain of loans is scary as hell. But the young people graduating from American elite universities belong to 0.000000000001% of the world’s population that can really choose jobs and life paths as they wish. If these kids don’t dare take a risks, who will? That is not to say that taking a corporate job is a bad thing. Not at all. But if the so-called great halls of great minds are, in Harvard professor Howard Gardener’s words, “simply becoming selecting mechanisms for Wall Street,” then the world is bound to miss out on a lot of top-tier talent that could otherwise have chosen alternative careers.

I wish more of us recent grads would take the brains and spunk that we have and create innovative new companies and policies, rather than immediately taking the safe route to lucrative living. But if the corporate way truly is for you, make another brave move: take your insider’s perspective and dare to revolutionize corporate America to be more in-tune towards balance and equality. That way, you’ll still be doing a great public service.

- Astri 

College green picture by Nick in exsilio on Flickr under Creative Commons License.  

Business people phot by squacco on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

"If information is power, then most employees who enter salary negotiations are holding pea shooters while the boss is encased in a Kevlar vest"

Like providing vacation and parental leave, paying higher salaries is not in a company’s short-term (some might say shortsighted) best interest. It is free market diktat that an employer will strive to pay you as little as possible. And it’s annoying gender fact #37 that women are notoriously lousy at negotiating their salaries (which is one reason they earn exponentially less throughout their careers).

The main problem, for all us would-be employees, is that salary negotiations are scary. They are scary because they are not transparent— fear of the unknown, you see. But this is where the handy-dandy internet comes in, and it’s information granting, social networking super powers save the day.

Now, with websites like salary.com and payscale.com, you can fight back, just like Jessica Morrison, the heroine in a pseudo-recent New York Times article ("Using the Web to Get the Boss to Pay More"), did.

Jessica Morrison wrote advertising copy for Drugstore.com in Seattle. “After five years at the company and several promotions, her title was associate editor even though she had the same duties as a copywriter, a loftier title. She also suspected that at $42,000 a year, she was paid a lot less than someone else with her duties.

She checked PayScale, and its free report that compares her pay with others holding a similar job title said that someone with her experience should be making $50,000 to $60,000. Then she went to see her manager. ‘I was a little nervous going in, but I had done my research,’ Ms. Morrison, 27, said. She got the title she wanted and a raise to within the pay range she suggested.”

Success!

Since salary information from sites like PayScale are only as good as the information you provide, go there and add your data. You can find out just how well you did negotiating your salary. Afterwards, pat yourself on the back or, if you find yourself on the lower end of the payscale, print out that graph and schedule a meeting with the boss stat.

If they went through the trouble of hiring you or offering you a position, the likelihood is that they want to keep you. Yes, you— sweaty palms and all.

- Vetta 

Just How Far We Are From "Equal Parenting" 

We recently got our hands on a copy of the forthcoming documentary Who Does She Think She Is , by director and producer Pamela Tanner Boll, who is the Co-executive producer of the Academy Award winner Born Into Brothels. That film tells the gripping tale of one woman working to help more children in India’s “red light” district than she can possibly take on by herself. In Who Does She Think She Is, Boll again tackles a story that revolves around women and children, but this time it is the women who need the helping.

Who Does She Think She Is takes an in-depth look at what it really means to be an artist and a mother. Big deal, right? Wrong. What we learn when watching the film is that female artists who have family responsibilities have a really hard time. The difficulties come at them from all directions. Penetrating the art world as a woman is tricky enough, doing so as a mother as well is ten times as tough. The stigma against mothers that prevails throughout the working world (“they’ll take time off,” “they’ll be unreliable,” “they’ll always have other priorities …”) seems exceptionally strong when it comes to art. But the greatest challenge that these women face is much closer to home. It is the expectation that taking care of house and home, and the kids inhabiting that home, is primarily a woman’s responsibility.

I can count over a dozen people who, in the past couple of days, have sent me Lisa Belkin’s article in The New York Times entitled, “When Mom and Dad Share it All.” Besides the fact that I have apparently been labeled the equality police in the eyes of my social circle, the verifiable email storm directed my way reminded me that the idea of shared parenting is a rather novel one. As Belkin’s article makes painfully clear, the American norm is still more “stone-age” than “modern-age.” Women very much shoulder the brunt of the domestic burden— even when they are working as hard as their men-folk. Belkin writes that when both husband and wife have full-time paying jobs, “the wife does 28 hours of housework and the husband, 16. Just shy of 2 to 1, which makes no sense at all.” What makes even less sense is that in homes where the woman is the breadwinner and the man does not have a paying job, she still does the majority of the housework. This isn’t even counting childcare. Once childcare is brought into the picture, the ratio becomes close to 5 to 1.

No doubt about it: American society continues to view women as the “natural” caretakers. In the case of the female artists that Boll features in Who Does She Think She Is, the struggle to maintain a creative career at the same time as living up to the demands of being the family’s primary caretaker is often excruciatingly difficult. For instance, one of the women, performance artist Angela Williams, begins the film in a happy marriage and ends it as a divorcee. Her husband simply couldn’t handle her growing desire to devote time and energy on her budding career.

With its title and its female focus, Who Does She Think She Is risks scaring off a great deal of viewers, simply because many of us have instant negative reactions to things smelling even ever so faintly of “feminist.” In fact, my colleague Vetta, formerly a classic knee-jerk-anti-feminist, began the film with a skeptical air. As she watched, however, she became increasingly engaged. The film moves skillfully between in-depth portraits of several women and the discussion of women’s role in art throughout history. The result is, simply, captivating. And smart. And, yes, caring.

In an interview with The Lattice Group, Boll said, “I don’t think I would have been as persistent, as caring, as careful with each of my subjects, getting them to open up, if I had not had the experience of being a very present and very listening mother.” The mothering touch defines the film. And thanks to it, Boll is able to capture the deepest, and most conflicted, desires of several women. The portraits are sensitively drawn, the stories compelling. In the end, we are left both with deep empathy for the women portrayed, as well as a new understanding for the toll the caretaker-expectation takes on women who strive to be good mothers while maintaining their identity as working artists.

Who Does She Think She Is underlines how far we really are from “equal parenting” of the kind described in Belkin’s New York Times article. Personally, I read Belkin’s article with interest, but also with worry and…amusement. Belkin explains that the idea of “equal parenting” is so foreign to most people that there are coaches you can hire to show you how to do it— detailed descriptions of excel spreadsheets dividing daily labor included. It all seems rather absurd. Then again, a spreadsheet or two might not be a bad idea for the over-worked mothers in Boll’s film.

The interviews that The Lattice Group has been doing over the past couple of months give me hope that our generation, who will be becoming parents in the next decade, might do things differently. As a young medical student we interviewed recently said, “Sure, the mom carries the thing for nine months, but as soon as it comes out the dad has just as much responsibility.” Perhaps, for Gen Y parents, the caretaker-expectation will finally be de-mystified and duties— and joys — divided fairly. As one of the “equal parenting” fathers in The Times article comments in regards to his and his wife’s seemingly exceptional choice to split caregiving straight down the middle, “’Why isn’t this just called parenting?’” Good Question.

But, if things don’t actually change by the time we start procreating, perhaps the question Gen Y mothers should be asking is, “who does he think he is?”

- Astri

Read The Lattice Group's interview with Pamela Tanner Boll here.  

Visit the official homepage of the documentary Who Does She Think She Is here.

Read the full New York Times article here.

The Starting Early, Starting Right Act would improve the quality and availability of child care and significantly increase funding to help families pay for child care.  

- Vetta  

 Going for Dream Jobs Over Cash Money 

After conducting about 100 interviews in five countries, we’re the first to admit that members of Gen Y are not created equal—the policies and cultures that exist in the cities we’ve visited are surprisingly varied. Take, for example, opinions on childcare centers: Americans fear and loathe them, while Europeans respect and rely on them. Or, consider the general outlook on men’s child-rearing roles: young Swedish gents are prepared to push the baby stroller, alone even, while their Russian counterparts probably don’t know what such a contraption looks like.

Despite these clear differences, there is one generalization I’m comfortable making about Gen Y—Muscovite, Spaniard, Swede, or American. When it comes to work, money isn’t everything. It's certainly not that we’ve tempered our spending habits, it's just that we want our jobs to fit into our lifestyle— not be our lifestyle. As co-head of Monster Europe stated in a recent Financial Times article, younger generations “look at work less as a life focus than as a life-enriching experience.”

Work as a life-enriching experience? Baby Boomers, whose company loyalty and post war-era work ethic seemingly knew no bounds, must be scoffing, loudly, at the idea. But it’s true: jobs and careers are no longer seen as simply a means to an end. Rather, a challenging and fulfilling career has become an end in itself. A 2001 survey found that 56 percent of people regarded their life outside as more important than their work, as compared with only 12 percent in 1955.

Though the "work to live" mantra has long been associated with European countries like France and Italy, the FT article (“Fair Pay: Money isn’t Everything”) claims that according to recent poll and survey data, “very few workers conform to the maximise-at-all-costs model of classical economic theory, least of all in countries where markets are run in closest conformity to those theories.” In fact, respondents to a recent Monster survey from countries on the lower end of the tax and government involvement spectrum—like the UK, US, and Ireland—were more likely to say they would “take a pay cut for the job of [their] dreams” than respondents from other countries in North America and Europe. One of the highest yes votes was in the US (82 per cent), while the average across the sample was 76 per cent.

Though "dream job" is up for interpretation, our own research confirms the idea that Gen Y has more "lifaholic" than "workaholic" tendencies. When we ask our interviewees what kind of benefits they look for in an employer, salaries are rarely at the top of the list, if they’re mentioned at all. Instead, I would say one of the most common responses is that Gen Yers want "interesting work." For all our flaws, members of Gen Y want to be challenged. And we want the opportunity to grow— training, further education, and mentorship programs are common responses as well.

This should be music to the ears of HR departments everywhere! Don't try to out-do your competitors by way of salaries.  To attract top talent, give us real responsibilities and mentors. Winners of the Great Place to Work Institute Europe Awards, for example, were not necessarily the highest payers. Instead, "awardees shared a philosophy emphasizing fairness, transparency and rewarding good work.” Each company doled out a large performance-related bonus element, sometimes worth as much as three to six months salary.

Now you're talking. We Gen Yers want to be told that we matter, that we did a good job. Me, me, me, me, me! Give us benefits correlated to our personal performance, rather than the amount of time we spend g-chatting at the office, and I assure you that next report will come in at record speed.

- Vetta

"Winther Motor Company" photo by Wisconsin Historical Society on flickr.com under creative commons license.

Business will suffer a major brain drain.

While riding the train to a Stockholm interview yesterday, I found myself reading back logs of The Economist (stacks of which my father leaves by my bed— oh the glory of parents’-house sejours), and stumbled upon the following:

A brief article entitled “Vital Statistics” divulged interesting findings from recent research about education and sex. Remember how boys are inherently better at math? Turns out, according to Luigi Guiso of the European University Institute in Florence and his colleagues, it’s culture and not biology that decides the score, in math at least. “In this week’s Science, they show that the gap in mathematics scores between boys and girls virtually disappears in countries with high levels of sexual equality, though the reading gap remains.”  The math-gap “vanished in countries such as Norway and Sweden, where the sexes are more or less on a par with one another.” The study, which examined some 276,000 15-year olds from 40 countries, showed that girls scored higher on reading overall. But in highly egalitarian countries where the math gap had vanished, the reading gap had only increased. The result? “Girls may acquire an absolute advantage over boys as a result of equal treatment.”

Now that is interesting. We’re in Sweden interviewing Swedish young people, so the news doesn’t strike me as that revolutionary. After all, “of course!” is the resounding response to splitting parental leave and household responsibilities equally, and, perhaps most interestingly, the majority of the young Swedish women we have interviewed claim that they think they will be equally or more ambitious career-wise than their future husband. Remember my little Dri