Running a values led business

When I joined Campus Advantage almost 6 years ago, I was drawn by the contagious enthusiasm of the founders, who have a true passion for serving students. Of the owners, the majority of us started out as RAs. This aligned perfectly with my vision and values, so I joined Campus Advantage, bringing my RA website and speaking under the umbrella of this brand new organization.

Fast-forward 6 years. Campus Advantage was just named to the Inc 5000 list as the 541st fastest growing privately held company in 2008. We have nearly 1,000 employees and manage over 30,000 beds of student housing. I have had the opportunity to work with students now numbering in the hundreds of thousands, and to train thousands of student leaders.

Back to the title of this post... Running a Values-Led Business. Campus Advantage was founded and is run with a strong set of values and a dual bottom line of putting Students First and being financially successful as well.

Today, as I reflect on the past 6 years, I am determined more than ever to keep the core vision and values of Campus Advantage live and well at every level of our organization, from the student staff to the senior leadership of the company. As we grow, this core sense of purpose becomes increasingly important yet increasingly difficult to maintain, but it deserves every ounce of energy we can pour into maintaining our core ethos and working to make this set of values play out in our every-day business operations.

I am currently preparing to conduct a couple of Students First res life conference calls with our site staff. I have to honestly ask the question, "do our team members understand this vision we have of making a difference in the lives of students? Are the folks who are working directly with our residents truly "bought in" to the bigger vision of Campus Advantage?" I plan to pose that question on these calls, and I will never stop asking that question. This is what makes us who we are and what we can become.

These are the folks who are arms and legs of our vision. Without them, we cannot be successful, let alone make a difference in the lives of our residents, which is truly the core of how we desire to do things at Campus Advantage.

"With a clear vision of what we can become, no difficulty is too great. Without it, we rarely step beyond our current boundaries."

How is your vision?

How is the vision of your employees?

Being willing to honestly ask is a good first step.

Find out where the vision has not reached.

Bear the torch and get it there.

Advice for Employers from Neil Howe

A conversation with Neil Howe: This is the last in a series of three posts from a conversation I had with Neil Howe, who is a recognized expert on generational issues.

Part I: Changes in the workforce | Part II: Misconceptions about Millennials | Part III: Advice for employers

Dan Oltersdorf: With very few exceptions, American workplaces are very diverse in age. What are some of the best ways you have seen companies make adjustments to cater to Millennial workers while still meeting the needs of Generation X, Boomers and the Silent Generation?

Howe: That's complicated and depends on the generation you are dealing with. Workforce participation is going up in the older brackets and will continue with Boomers still working and blocking advancement for the poor Xers.

You are going to see changes in each generation. Boomer issues of finding meaningful careers with corporate culture and workaholism will age into the 60 and 70 something phase of life, and xers with their pragamtism will become the midlife generation in charge and cast a very different tone to the eonomiy as the leaders of businesses.

Dan Oltersdorf: Do you have any other advice for managers and employers as they work to harness the potential and address the challenges of today's multi-generational workforce?

Howe: Look around; when it comes to young people, stay interested int heir world. A lot of Boomers and even some Xers have given up taking any interest in young people. They think they've figured it out and everything else is a continuation of that trend.

If you aren't interested in young people and don't have an open mind, looking at their world and taking some curiosity to it, you won't realize that every generation turns a corner and never does what the last generation did.

Each generation solves new problems and finds a new point of departure.

Remain curious. A lot of benefits would come from this change in attitude.

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A Conversation with Neil Howe | Part II - Misconceptions about Millennials

A conversation with Neil Howe

Part I: Changes in the workforce
Part II: Misconceptions about Millennials

It's not just a function of age.

During my conversation with Neil Howe, I asked him what misconceptions he hears about Millennials and generations in the workforce. He said the biggest misconception he hears is that generational issues are simply a "myth." People attribute differences to age rather than generational differences.

Howe states, "people in midlife and even veteran people in the workforce always complain about anything new. No one likes to change. We like things to remain as they were, so older workers have always complained about younger workers."

Despite this fact, Howe does see changes in what people are complaining about.

"The things people complain about with millennials are very different than what they complained about 10 to 15 years ago with generation X."

"The complaints used to be that Gen Xers had no commitment, no trust, and an extreme amount of mobility. There was a free agent mentality as well as an attitude."

Howe finds that "with millennials, people don't complain about attitude, they complain about these workders being over programmed, not being able to take risks, not being able to accept failure."

This is almost the opposite of the complaints about Generation X, where "people felt they expected failure, which was almost a problem. With millennials, they are the opposite, expecting success, and they seem more teachable."

Basic Work Skills Training:

Howe has recommended that campuses start offering more courses focused on filling a gap in "soft skills" necessary in the workforce such as punctuality, attire, business communication, etc. The reality however, seems to be that most institutions of Higher Education are not doing this consistently, or if they are, the complaints from corporate America would seem to indicate it's not working.

I asked Howe if he believes companies should start offering remedial soft skills training as a part of orientation and whether he has seen this happening?

Howe states that while institutions or even institutes should be doing it, they aren't.

"Many Millennials in college don't have much work experience other than quasi-jobs in college. In general they aren't working very much. College and pre-college employment is "no longer regarded as fruitful." Also, "Boomer and X-er parents haven't taught them any of these skills."

The good news for employers when it comes to training in these areas is that Millennials "are extremely teachable."

I mentioned to Neil Howe that some of the articles I have read about Millennials indicate there is very little concept of loyalty to a company anymore, which can negatively affect a company's retention efforts. I asked him his perspective on this:

Howe's answer was more balanced than some of the perspectives I've read about. He explained that it "may take a while for loyalty to develop. Loyalty is earned. Blind loyalty is just dumb! You will move in if there is no opportunity with a job. The difference in orientation is that millennials will job hop when they have to, but their ultimate goal is to find a long term path and if they can find one company that does it all for them, they will stay. The surveys on this point are unambiguous. They want one job that will give them what they want. They will not job hop for the sake of job hopping."

Howe continued by talking about Xers, who he says "more legitimately had this reputation. (of job hopping). They had much more of a situational ethic. Typically when millennials to jump jobs, they are looking for the long term."

Howe believes this is a disconnect that happens between employers and young workers: "Typically older people don't talk to millennials about the long term, then they react with dismay when they quit."

The next post will continue with more information focused on "Advice for Employers."

Conversation with Neil Howe:

Part I: Changes in the Workforce

Part II: Misconceptions about Millennials

Be sure to check out Howe's books and services at Lifecourse Associates

A conversation with Neil Howe | Part I - Changes in the workforce

When it comes to experts in generational research, history and trends, Neil Howe is at the top of the list. Howe is a best-selling author, consultant and national speaker. He is a renowned authority on generations in America.

Having known of his work for years, and having seen his name cited in articles since grad school, I was excited when Howe agreed to a phone interview.

Over the course of the next few posts, I'll share more of my conversation with Neil Howe in three sections:

I) Changes in the workforce,

II) and Misconceptions about Millennials

III) Advice for employers.

For the purpose of this post, I'll focus on conversations we had about changes in the workforce.

In Millennials Go to College, Howe points out that as more Millennials leave college and enter the workforce, "employers will start using different recruiting techniques--and reorganizing working environments--to attract and retain them."

I asked him to expand on what changes he is seeing.

"A lot of changes are already being seen. Employers don't necessarily understand the issues, and instead more trial and error is being used."

More teamwork in the workplace.

"One of the things you are seeing is a greater effort to accommodate and facilitate teamwork in the office and in the workplace with this new generation because employers didn't take long to realize millennials work well in groups."

Instant Messaging (IM) is a prime example of this. "When people first started doing IM, employers prohibited it. Then, employers realized these workers were helping each other using IM." There is more of a collaborative approach to work, contrasted with older generations who was coworkers as competition.

Looking at the long term:

Another thing Howe says that employers are now observing is that the Millennials are planners. "They like to plan ahead and there is a greater emphasis on longer term employment within the company." Generation X was asking 'what do I get this year?' 'What can I cash out with now?' while Millennials are taking a longer term perspective.

"We are beginning to see increasingly young people come in and ask long term questions; 5 years down the road, where can I grow in this company? This was not necessarily the case with Gen X. There is also a greater emphasis on bonding within an institution. Some companies ae actually having camps and retreats where they immerse people into living with one another 24/7 (like Accenture), learning the lore of the company. This would not have gone will with Gen X. This would have caused a riot with the Boomers, and Gen X simply wouldn't have been interested."

Bring on the helicopter parents:

Yet another factor Howe sees is that the helicopter parent is now looming over the workforce. Out of necessity, employers are placing more of an emphasis on sheltering and doing more outreach to parents.

"Employers hate the parental presence, but it is now extending into the workforce," Howe states. "Excessive parental involvement was originally the single biggest complaint among teachers several years ago, then it predictably moved into colleges, and how it is becoming a pervasive issue in HR departments with parents doing everything from helping fill out applications to actually coming to their children's interviews."

Many employers are working with this trend. Howe says that "employers are now working on co-marketing to parents. Enterprise now has a completely separate employee orientation just for parents of new employees."

What are your thoughts on these trends?

The next posts from my conversation with Howe will focus on
II. Misconceptions of Millennials,
then
III. Advice for Employers

I'll share more in upcoming posts from my conversation with Neil Howe. Be sure to check out his books and services at Lifecourse Associates

Welcome to my blog!

For quite some time, I've been meaning to start my own blog, focused on student housing management. I've done some blogs for fun like MileHighBuzz... some blogs for Campus Advantage, including a "green blog". I also have a family blog, which I'll occasionally post pics from here, but until this point, I've neglected to create my own blog.

That changes today. :-) The focus of my blog will be Student Housing. It's my career. I love it. I've been doing it for 11 years now. WOW. Thanks for reading!