Topic Teasers Vol. 57: Skill Shifts to Notice

Have a question you would like to submit as a potential Topic Teaser? Send a message to Barbee Davis today!

  Career Development   Leadership   Using PMI Standards  

My teams seem to be composed of younger and younger people, and even though I am an experienced and certified project manager we are having retention issues. I am managing just as I have successfully done in the past, but it no longer seems to work. The expense of constantly recruiting and training new people for my team is raising flags with my manager about my own performance. What can I do?

A. The majority of employees in the workforce today are Generation X. They will not be led and must be allowed to form their own teams and do the work when and how they see fit. Do not try to manage them.

B. The majority of employees in the workforce today are millennials, and they do not respond well to being managed by someone for whom they do not have respect as a leader. Up your leadership skills.

C. Ask your own manager for the position power to put people who do not do what you ask within a reasonable amount of time, and to the standards you require, on report. Let them know that if this same behavior happens on the next task, they will be asked to leave the company.

D. Modern employees are unwilling to have someone else set the goals for their workday. Involve teams in each and every decision that is made about what the project will create, when it can be delivered and the quality standards to which it must adhere.

(scroll down for answer...)

&…

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.