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I 4C The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Wensay cobr3 007-heMchgn aly S

Why you scare your employer

pressure on middle management
to stay competitive in a global
field. The report said supervisors
are frustrated with rising expec-
tations for the amount of work
they goad out of employees.
But Ivey said recent graduates
come into the office with a differ-
ent outlook before they're given
the chance to be jaded by volatile
job security. It's developed, she
said, before they even leave home
for college.
Ivey said the parents of Gen-
eration Y prevented their children
from learning the reality of life
outside the nest by coddling them.
Having grown up in a time where
every kid on the soccer team got a
trophy, a young employee is likely
to expect praise for mediocre
work.
If that gratification doesn't
come, if in its place is termination,
college graduates of Generation Y
have no qualms running back to
mom and dad. A study by Experi-
ence Inc. said 58 percent of college
graduates from the classes of2000
to 2006 moved home after gradu-
ation and that 32 percent lived
there for more than a year.
In a survey of 18- to 25-year-
olds by Pew Research Center, 73
percent see their parents at least
once a week and half see them
daily.
Ivey said employers complain
that the parents of young employ-
ees will sometimes try to extend
their parental protection to their
children's professional lives by
meddling in affairs at the office.
"I think you have a whole gen-
eration of 20-somethings that are
uncomfortable making decisions
on their own," she said. "How do
you make leaders out of people
who seemingly can't do anything
without their parents?"
There are exceptions to the
rule. Ivey said she tells employ-
ers to look to Army graduates
or children of immigrants for
employees with discipline and an
appreciation of opportunity. And
if employers really want to avoid
the personality characterizing the
applicant pool, they can always
move operations to another coun-
try.
"When managers complain
about work being just OK, there
are a lot of eager, hardworking
people overseas who are willing to
do that work for you," Ivey said.