企業(yè)留不住年輕人現(xiàn)象探源

I live in a house full of millennials, three of whom arehaving their first skirmishes with working life. Everyday I study them, marvelling at how little their earlyexperiences resemble my own. Sometimes I think itis because they are different. Sometimes because theworld is different. I don’t know the right answer —but at least I know the wrong one when I see it.

我們家有好幾個(gè)千禧一代，其中3個(gè)剛開始嘗到工作生活的滋味。我每天都在研究他們，驚嘆于他們的早期經(jīng)歷與我有多么不同。有時(shí)我覺得這是因?yàn)樗麄兒臀也灰粯?。有時(shí)我覺得是這個(gè)世界變了。我不知道正確答案是什么——但至少我能一眼看出哪些答案是錯(cuò)誤的。

Last week I got an email with the subject line “attracting millennials” from the dean ofColumbia’s School of Professional Studies. He has been pondering the question of why so manyof the brightest twentysomethings quit their fancy jobs, and has come up with a three-prongedstrategy to help companies hang on to them. It goes like this: motivate through learning,market your benefit, invest in HR.

上周，我收到了一封來自哥倫比亞大學(xué)職業(yè)研究學(xué)院(Columbia University School of ProfessionalStudies)院長的郵件，主題欄寫著“吸引千禧一代”。他最近一直在思考一個(gè)問題：為什么會有這么多20多歲的青年才俊辭去光鮮的工作?他想出了一個(gè)三管齊下的策略來幫助企業(yè)留住他們。策略是這樣的：通過學(xué)習(xí)進(jìn)行激勵(lì)、推銷你的福利、投資于人力資源(HR)。

I stared at these puny bullet points and wondered if this man had ever met a millennial. Thatevening I asked my focus group around the dinner table if they agreed that the answer to massdisenchantment was more HR and training. Much derision followed.

我看著這些小小的要點(diǎn)，納悶這個(gè)人是否和千禧一代打過交道。那天晚上我向圍坐在餐桌旁的“焦點(diǎn)小組”問道，他們是否認(rèn)同這樣的見解：大規(guī)模幻想破滅的答案是更多HR和培訓(xùn)。隨之而來的是一片嘲笑聲。

So how ought companies act to keep their graduates, I asked them. They snatched up theirdevices and addressed their sprawling acquaintanceships on social networks — could anyonewho had landed a big graduate job that they were now thinking of quitting please get in touch?

接著我問道，那么企業(yè)該怎么做才能留住畢業(yè)生。他們迅速抓起各自的手機(jī)，向他們在社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)上越來越龐大的人脈關(guān)系網(wǎng)發(fā)問——有誰得到了一份像樣的畢業(yè)生工作，但現(xiàn)在考慮辭去?

What followed was a diverting evening hearing the experiences of the disenchanted at Unilever,Goldman, Lloyds, a magic circle law firm, a big PR company, Sainsbury’s and a couple of big-name management consultants.

接下來是一個(gè)有趣的夜晚，聽著這幫小年輕吐槽對聯(lián)合利華(Unilever)、高盛(Goldman)、勞埃德銀行(Lloyds)、一家“神奇圈”(Magic Circle)律所、一家大型公關(guān)公司、森寶利超市(Sainsbury's)以及兩家大牌管理咨詢公司幻想破滅的經(jīng)歷。

One graduate told me she had just spent four months working on a deck of 250 PowerPointslides no one would ever read. Another said juniors at her law firm were expected to nip out tobuy sandwiches for seniors, as if they were their fags at Eton. A graduate with a first in Englishfrom Oxford university said her boss insisted on checking every email she wrote before it wassent, making her doubt her own ability to write a sentence.

一名畢業(yè)生告訴我，她剛剛花了4個(gè)月的時(shí)間做了一份長達(dá)250頁、壓根沒人會看的PPT幻燈片。另一個(gè)畢業(yè)生說，她所在律所的初級律師要給資深律師跑腿買三明治，就像伊頓公學(xué)里那些受欺負(fù)的孩子一樣。一名從牛津大學(xué)(Oxford University)畢業(yè)并拿到英語專業(yè)一級榮譽(yù)學(xué)位的年輕女士說，她的老板堅(jiān)持檢查她所寫的每封郵件，然后才能發(fā)出，使得她開始質(zhì)疑自己寫句子的能力。

Almost everyone complained of the sheer stupidity of the tasks they were given to do.

幾乎所有人都抱怨自己接到的愚不可及的任務(wù)。

And then as an afterthought, they mentioned the hours. It’s not fun to have worked all nightand then to be given a bollocking for not having shaved.

接著，他們想起了另一個(gè)問題：工作時(shí)長。通宵工作之后因?yàn)闆]刮胡子而被臭罵一頓，這一點(diǎn)也不好玩。

What is going on here? Are they spoilt whingers? Or are these jobs really intolerable? I think it’sa bit of both: they are up against the widest gap between expectations and reality that theprofessional world has ever seen — and it’s not their fault.

到底發(fā)生了什么?他們是被寵壞的滿腹牢騷之人嗎?或者這些工作真的很無聊嗎?我覺得兩種原因都有：他們面對的期望與現(xiàn)實(shí)差距之大，在職場世界是前所未見的——這不是他們的錯(cuò)。

Most of these graduates have been told over and over again by prospective employers that theyare extraordinary, and that their jobs are amazing. The Bain website is typical: “We needsmart, innovative thinkers who aspire to incredible things. The learning curve is steep. Butthe work is exhilarating. And your career potential is infinite.”

多數(shù)畢業(yè)生聽到未來雇主們一遍又一遍地強(qiáng)調(diào)他們的出類拔萃、他們的工作有多棒。貝恩(Bain)網(wǎng)站上的內(nèi)容就是典型例子：“我們需要聰明、具有創(chuàng)新力、渴望嘗試不可思議之事的思考者。學(xué)習(xí)曲線是陡峭的。但工作令人振奮。你擁有無限的職業(yè)潛力。”

When I was their age no one ever told me I was amazing or that the future was infinite, so Iwasn’t especially disappointed to find I wasn’t and it wasn’t.

我像他們這么大時(shí)，沒人告訴我我很出色或者我擁有無限的未來，所以當(dāng)我發(fā)現(xiàn)自己沒那么出色、未來也沒那么光明時(shí)，我并沒有特別失望。

By contrast, millennials are being set up by their employers for an inevitable fall. At firstthings go OK — there is the promise of air miles and the general swagger of it all. But after afew months, the boredom hits and they find they aren’t faced with exhilarating work. They arefilling in spreadsheets that have no apparent purpose.

相比之下，千禧一代從一開始就被雇主推上了注定會掉落的高臺。最初一切貌似美好——有機(jī)會出差掙得飛行里程等等，總之是一份讓人神氣十足的光鮮工作。但是數(shù)月后，厭倦襲來，他們發(fā)現(xiàn)自己面對的并不是令人興奮的工作，而是日復(fù)一日地填寫著看不出意義的電子表格。

Junior jobs were always dull, but I suspect that they are worse than they were. In my daythere was no PowerPoint, no spreadsheets, no PR, no HR, no layer upon layer of non-work tobe doing. Even in my earliest jobs when I was given boring tasks I realised that someone hadto do them. These graduates feel part of a machine: because everyone knows they probablywon’t stay, no one makes any particular effort to get to know them.

初級工作總是平淡的，但是我懷疑如今的情況比過去更糟。在我那個(gè)時(shí)代，還沒有PPT、電子表格、公關(guān)、HR，也沒有一層又一層并非工作的事情要做。即使在我接到乏味任務(wù)的早期工作中，我也明白總得有人做這些工作。當(dāng)今這些畢業(yè)生感覺就像機(jī)器的零件一樣：因?yàn)槊總€(gè)人都知道他們很可能不會留下來，所以沒人特別花功夫去了解他們。

More dangerous still is the gap between the corporate bullshit and the business itself.

不過，更危險(xiǎn)的是企業(yè)胡扯與企業(yè)現(xiàn)實(shí)之間的差距。

A young graduate at a management consultancy tells me that every day it is drummed into himby superiors that the firm always acts in the best interests of the client. But every week hewatches the same people trying to flog further costly services that the client doesn’t need.

一名在管理咨詢公司工作的年輕畢業(yè)生告訴我，上司每天都會向他灌輸公司總是以客戶利益至上的觀念。但是每周他都會看到這些人試著兜售客戶不需要的高價(jià)額外服務(wù)。

When the penny drops like this, there are only two possible outcomes. Either you quit — andthis particular millennial has just banked his bonus and is about to do just that — or yousilence your doubts and get sucked into the machine.

當(dāng)年輕人幡然醒悟時(shí)，只有兩種可能的后果。要么你辭職——這位年輕人剛剛拿到獎(jiǎng)金，正打算辭職——要么收起你的懷疑，甘心投入運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)中的機(jī)器。

This is what employers should be concentrating on. They should be trying to distract their newgraduates at the point of maximum disaffection. The answer isn’t training or more HR — it isall round better management. They must stop telling them they have landed the most amazingjob in the world. Instead they should give them something interesting to do, or at least be ableto explain why filling in that particular spreadsheet really matters.

這才是雇主應(yīng)該關(guān)注的地方。他們應(yīng)該嘗試在新畢業(yè)生最失落的時(shí)候吸引住這些年輕人。答案不是培訓(xùn)和人力資源——而在于更好的日常管理。他們必須停止告訴年輕人他們得到了世界上最牛的工作。相反，他們應(yīng)該交給他們一些有意思的任務(wù)，或者至少解釋一下填寫那些電子表格的意義。