Manage and motivate younger employees

Last month the Harvard Business Review blog had a feature on managing employees in their twenties which is something that I think I have done well most of the time but once in a while I haven't had a positive experience.

"Younger people are especially hungry both to learn and to receive affirmation that they are doing a good job. I've found the best ones are generally much more motivated by incremental education and acknowledgement than they are by a modest bump in salary."

In my experience with employees from both the intern level on through to junior level staff this certainly holds true. A while back I posted some thoughts on hiring co-op students that matches well with the statement above. One of TribeHR's other co-founders, Joseph, also posted some thoughts of his own that match that statement in workplace lessons for the gen-y workforce.

If you don't offer young people constraints in which to work and acknowledge what they are doing is indeed valuable I have seen first hand how quickly a great employee can turn into someone not really engaged and seeing their job as something they have to do 9 to 5. Personally, I love working with people that don't see work as a job but something they are passionate about doing. That passion is in everyone, the challenge as a manager is to tap into it.

If you haven't seen the article yet, go check it out: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/01/managing_employees_in_their_tw.html