SPOILED ROTTEN: Young workers are acting like children
TABLE tennis, video games, bean bags. No, it’s not the local youth centre — this is what it takes to keep gen Y happy at work. But is it healthy to treat your employees like children?
It seems every company these days is bending over backwards to come up with ever-more outrageous perks. Massage sessions, nap pods, paid sabbaticals and even acupuncture are not unheard-of in today’s hip and happening offices.
Software company Atlassian last week took out the top honour in BRW’s annual Best Places to Work list — office perks include boutique beer on tap, a lolly pick ‘n’ mix bar, video games, ping pong tables and even a ‘Mood-App’ to keep track of employees’ emotions.
Don’t get us wrong — Atlassian genuinely sounds like a great place to work, and they deserve recognition. So does Melbourne-based tech outfit Envato, which was recently named Australia’s Coolest Tech Company.
Vodafone has also gotten in on the action, going full-on ‘Google’ in its bid to attract Gen Ys with ping pong tables, meditation areas, spiral tube slides, Xbox and foosball in its Hobart call centre.
From a business standpoint, all these perks probably make sense. Research shows nearly half of Australians are unhappy in their jobs and more than half say they’re planning a career change in the next two years.
Job hopping has become the new norm. It’s cheaper to fork out for a beer fridge and a pool table than have to replace and retrain some 24-year-old hotshot every 18 months. Millennials are notoriously fickle, and researchers say it’s not just the older generation’s imagination: Gen Ys are, in fact, entitled.
As San Diego State University psychology professor Jean Twenge said last month: “This is a cultural change. People hear me and think I’m complaining about young people. I’m not. This is what young people are saying about themselves.”
Yeah I see how well the 18-30 year old's are treated at work, they all just lay around on beanbags all day drinking expensive beers and taking in massive pay cheques the boss and senior management bend their backs over for them......
If you keep developers enthused, they will come back to the workstation and do another debug session after waiting for the build rather than going home. That's how you get 16-hour days out of them.
It's no coincidence that all of the examples were in software development environments.
The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off. --Gloria Steinem AREPS™
As an aside, Atlassian are currently trying to expand their workforce in Oz by something like 600 employees. They are a true Australian tech start-up success story, with a truly international business.
Sydney & Melbourne are full of dozens of other companies like this that often grow quite rapidly. Of couse many fail & fade away as well, but some become very successful. Most never make mainsteam news headlines so you don't hear about them, but they provide a lot of high paying professional jobs.
As an aside, Atlassian are currently trying to expand there workforce in Oz by something like 600 employees. They are a true Australian tech start-up success story, with a truly international business.
I worked for a startup. Best time. The Guy spent 1/2 a million on patents.
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