企業留不住年輕人現象探源大綱

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

我們家有好幾個千禧一代，其中3個剛開始嚐到工作生活的滋味。我每天都在研究他們，驚歎於他們的早期經歷與我有多麼不同。有時我覺得這是因爲他們和我不一樣。有時我覺得是這個世界變了。我不知道正確答案是什麼——但至少我能一眼看出哪些答案是錯誤的。

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

上週，我收到了一封來自哥倫比亞大學職業研究學院(Columbia University School of Professional Studies)院長的郵件，主題欄寫着“吸引千禧一代”。他最近一直在思考一個問題：爲什麼會有這麼多20多歲的青年才俊辭去光鮮的工作？他想出了一個三管齊下的策略來幫助企業留住他們。策略是這樣的：通過學習進行激勵、推銷你的福利、投資於人力資源(HR)。

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

我看着這些小小的要點，納悶這個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“焦點小組”問道，他們是否認同這樣的見解：大規模幻想破滅的答案是更多HR和培訓。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 their devices and addressed their sprawling acquaintanceships on social networks — could anyone who had landed a big graduate job that they were now thinking of quitting please get in touch?

接着我問道，那麼企業該怎麼做才能留住畢業生。他們迅速抓起各自的手機，向他們在社交網絡上越來越龐大的人脈關係網發問——有誰得到了一份像樣的畢業生工作，但現在考慮辭去？

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.

接下來是一個有趣的夜晚，聽着這幫小年輕吐槽對聯合利華(Unilever)、高盛(Goldman)、勞埃德銀行(Lloyds)、一家“神奇圈”(Magic Circle)律所、一家大型公關公司、森寶利超市(Sainsbury's)以及兩家大牌管理諮詢公司幻想破滅的經歷。

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

一名畢業生告訴我，她剛剛花了4個月的時間做了一份長達250頁、壓根沒人會看的PPT幻燈片。另一個畢業生說，她所在律所的初級律師要給資深律師跑腿買三明治，就像伊頓公學裏那些受欺負的孩子一樣。一名從牛津大學(Oxford University)畢業並拿到英語專業一級榮譽學位的年輕女士說，她的老闆堅持檢查她所寫的每封郵件，然後才能發出，使得她開始質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。

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

接着，他們想起了另一個問題：工作時長。通宵工作之後因爲沒刮鬍子而被臭罵一頓，這一點也不好玩。

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

到底發生了什麼？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實差距之大，在職場世界是前所未見的——這不是他們的錯。

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

多數畢業生聽到未來僱主們一遍又一遍地強調他們的出類拔萃、他們的工作有多棒。貝恩(Bain)網站上的內容就是典型例子：“我們需要聰明、具有創新力、渴望嘗試不可思議之事的思考者。學習曲線是陡峭的。但工作令人振奮。你擁有無限的職業潛力。”

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

我像他們這麼大時，沒人告訴我我很出色或者我擁有無限的未來，所以當我發現自己沒那麼出色、未來也沒那麼光明時，我並沒有特別失望。

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

相比之下，千禧一代從一開始就被僱主推上了註定會掉落的高臺。最初一切貌似美好——有機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。但是數月後，厭倦襲來，他們發現自己面對的並不是令人興奮的工作，而是日復一日地填寫着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 day there was no PowerPoint, no spreadsheets, no PR, no HR, no layer upon layer of non-work to be doing. Even in my earliest jobs when I was given boring tasks I realised that someone had to do them. These graduates feel part of a machine: because everyone knows they probably won’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。在我那個時代，還沒有PPT、電子表格、公關、HR，也沒有一層又一層並非工作的事情要做。即使在我接到乏味任務的早期工作中，我也明白總得有人做這些工作。當今這些畢業生感覺就像機器的零件一樣：因爲每個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，更危險的是企業胡扯與企業現實之間的差距。

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

一名在管理諮詢公司工作的年輕畢業生告訴我，上司每天都會向他灌輸公司總是以客戶利益至上的觀念。但是每週他都會看到這些人試着兜售客戶不需要的高價額外服務。

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

當年輕人幡然醒悟時，只有兩種可能的後果。要麼你辭職——這位年輕人剛剛拿到獎金，正打算辭職——要麼收起你的懷疑，甘心投入運轉中的機器。

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

這纔是僱主應該關注的地方。他們應該嘗試在新畢業生最失落的時候吸引住這些年輕人。答案不是培訓和人力資源——而在於更好的日常管理。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，他們應該交給他們一些有意思的任務，或者至少解釋一下填寫那些電子表格的意義。