The Curse of Millennial Job Churn

millennials-in-charge-640x302I was surprised that Finance Minister Bill Morneau warned Millennials that they should “get used to so-called job churn – short-term employment and a number of career changes in a person’s life.” Does this mean he’s giving up on the economy?

I looked around the other day and decided that as a group, my friends who had stuck with one job or one career all of their lives were on the whole, financially better off than the ones who skipped around between jobs and careers. Even the ones in lower paid jobs had done well financially as they could plan and save knowing how much they were earning.

So is Bill Morneau effectively stating that Millennials should get used to the idea that they are not going to be as well off financially as their parents?

Here’s what happens. If you don’t have a secure career, you won’t spend as much on a house or maybe you won’t buy one at all. After all, Bill’s saying that you better play it safe as you might not know when your next gig will start even though we’re going to train you so that you can keep switching careers regularly.

If you don’t buy a house or spend as much on one then you probably won’t need all sorts of furniture and will not be spending much on renovations. As for buying a cottage, to hell with that idea.

So what happens to the economy when all those job-churning millennials stop spending money? Well the economy tanks and who then will pay for all of us boomers to retire?

What’s the solution? Well it isn’t only training plans. Somehow we need to be de-risking this world of churning jobs so that millennials can plan properly for their future. (And in that way contribute better to boomer retirement – did I mention that it’s still all about boomers anyway?)

Your Job is to Make Your Boss Happy

screen-shot-2016-10-19-at-11-04-20-amI was surprised to read in the Globe that Guy Laurence had been turfed as Roger’s CEO but I wasn’t surprised about why. Apparently he had a rocky relationship with the Rogers family who still have control of the company Ted Rogers built.

I had heard from people inside Rogers that he was doing some great work, work that changed fundamentally how they did business and served the customer but that work would take a while to pay off.

While he may have been doing good work he apparently had a brash style and was disrespectful in his dealings with certain members of the Rogers family. In the end, it didn’t matter how good a job he was doing, it only mattered how his bosses felt.

People, (and engineers), you really have to take this one to heart. It doesn’t matter how well you think you’re doing your job. If your boss isn’t happy then you’re toast.

It’s this emotional intelligence thing rearing its ugly head again. We can curse Maya Angelou for saying “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel” but we can’t get around it.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow, particularly for left-brained professionals but technical merit alone won’t help you get ahead at work. Having the right answer all the time doesn’t matter. Delivering expected results will only get you so far.

Ultimately, it only matters how your boss feels about your work. Yes, I know you have to deliver baseline results so you don’t get fired for being a complete write-off but beyond that, success doesn’t come from excellence, it comes from happiness, in this case, your boss’s.

Now I must confess that it took me over 30 years to learn this lesson myself and perhaps that’s why I haven’t had many bosses in my career.

So all of you lawyers, accountants, engineers, scientists and programmers out there, if you want a successful career, repeat after me: “My job is to make my boss happy.”