Summary:
- Part 1: Younger, entry-level team members may be more motivated by a sense of ownership and belonging to a larger cause, rather than just a paycheck.
- Part 2: An enthusiastic new-hire’s curiosity, combined with their lack of experience may help identify blind-spots in culture, tools, processes and roadblocks that may help improve organizational performance.
- Part 3: Empowering your lowest-level team members to be able to explain your organization’s goals and decision-making strategy may help support creativity and critical thinking.
- Part 4: Recognition for an entry-level team member may be as simple as genuinely expressing interest in their contributions, even if they are minor.
I want to feel like I am part of something epic! I’m not just here to collect a paycheck.
If you haven’t taken the time to watch this 6-minute video recapping the latest SpaceX launch of SES-10 on March 30th, you really should do so now.
Regardless of whether or not you’ve worked in the aerospace industry, you can really feel the screams of passion and emotion coming through the video. I can only imagine the extremely late and stressful nights with excessive amounts of caffeine to pull this off. My question is why? Why are they willing to do this? Is the rocket scientist’s salary as high as these space-bound rockets?
SpaceX places as one of the lowest paying tech companies to work for in the US. The motivation and burning passion to work here must not be ‘just collecting a paycheck’ and going home, there’s got to be something more. Something bigger.
Payscale’s interactive infographic shows SpaceX attracting a relatively young group for relatively low pay among industry peers.
Many of the entry-level hires at SpaceX likely fall into the “Millennial” generation that has been plagued with inter-generational frustration and misunderstanding. The results achieved by these same Millennials clearly demonstrate to us, as leaders, that the high productivity we expect, and the long hours we respect, are both possible if we learn to understand what drives this group to high performance.
Employees who derive meaning and significance from their work were more than three times as likely to stay with their organizations — the highest single impact of any variable in our survey. These employees also reported 1.7 times higher job satisfaction and they were 1.4 times more engaged at work.
New York Times
SpaceX seems to have found at least part of their answer in providing Millennials a job with a moon-shot vision (pun intended), that really means something to them. The mission can be even more important to them than the work/life balance that we Gen-Xers strive for if they truly believe in it. This new generation can also be much more loyal to our organizations as long as we continue to raise the bar, represent the cause that they stand for, and give them ownership over their daily work that they can be proud of.
- Can your new-hire Millennial rally behind your mission statement?
- How are you training and investing in your new-hires to be able to quickly take ownership and bring their passion to your work?
Part 1 Conclusions:
Take the time to listen and understand the motivation of your younger, entry-level team members. A sense of belonging to a larger cause and the opportunity to take ownership over their domain helps promote commitment, higher satisfaction, and engagement.
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