Show them the Love

Edition: October 2008 - Vol 16 Number 10
Article#: 3025
Author: Repertoire

You may not think of your company as a Tower of Babel, but the fact is, you work with people from multiple generations. And sometimes, communication among them can be like speaking multiple languages. It’s up to managers to make all of those many generations feel at home and productive on the job. And it’s up to sales reps to make an effort to understand their cross-generational colleagues and – if they are recent hires – the new environment in which they find themselves.

Helping new hires – particularly sales reps – get acclimated to their companies is a topic of interest to Debbie Stewart, manager of the healthcare sales program at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minn. The college’s Center for Sales Innovation launched a four-year degree program in business-to-business sales in 1998, and a healthcare sales program in 2001. Together with its corporate partners, including 3M Hospital Systems, the Center has developed what it calls an “onboarding” model, that is, a process to introduce, train, integrate and coach new hires in the culture and methods of the company. Understanding the needs and perspectives of different generations of workers is a crucial part of the process, she says.

According to Stewart, so-called Traditionalists (those born before World War II), Baby Boomers (post World War II to 1964), Gen-Xers (those born between 1965 and 1980) and Millennials (those born after 1981) differ in a number of ways, including their:

• Attitude toward authority.

• Expectations of performance evaluation.

• Response to various styles of management.



Managers and sales reps who understand these differences and respond accordingly are likely to succeed. “Each generation, as they come to the workplace from the home, family, farm, school, etc., has had to recognize it’s not just them in the sandbox anymore,” says Stewart. “A lot of what we do in our sales courses is to emphasize ‘emotional intelligence,’ that is, the ability to develop self-awareness with strength, resilience and empathy for others; and the ability to work and build rapport with others.”

Attitude toward authority

For Traditionalists, “it was all about chain of command,” says Stewart. But Baby Boomers have always tended to question authority. “For them, it was all about change of command.” The Gen X-ers, meanwhile, tend to simply ignore command. “Their mantra has been self command,” says Stewart. “If they felt they weren’t getting enough opportunities, they’d say, ‘I’ll get out of the organization or I’ll do my own thing in the context of the organization.’” By contrast, Millennials tend not to look at command at all. “For them, it’s more about cooperation vs. any kind of authoritarian structure.”

Performance evaluation

Sales managers need to understand their reps’ different perspectives toward performance evaluation. “Baby Boomers entered a workplace in which Traditionalists figured the less conversation the better,” says Stewart. “But the Baby Boomers weren’t ready to accept that. They wanted some sense of how they were doing.” To a Boomer, an annual evaluation, properly documented, was good enough. Then along came the Gen-Xers. “They wanted immediate feedback upon completion of a project,” she says. And Millennials? They want continual, ongoing feedback.

It’s no surprise why the younger generations need frequent feedback. It’s what they got from their Baby Boomer parents. They were raised with well-planned activities, and they were rewarded not only for doing a good job, but for simply showing up. “They are accustomed to being constantly stroked,” Stewart points out. “So in terms of performance evaluation, Millennials don’t want to wait until the project is done, not to mention waiting a year for their performance evaluation.”

Management style

Not surprisingly, different generations respond to (and tend to create) different management styles, says Stewart. “Boomers tended to prefer and adopt a relatively formal structure. They were concerned about political correctness.” Given the sheer number of Boomers in the workplace at the same time, they tended to place a premium on getting along, not ruffling feathers. By contrast, Gen-Xers tend to prefer straightforward, honest talk. And Millennials prefer coaching and mentoring to authoritarian-style dictates. What’s more, they expect their leaders to model the kind of behavior they desire from employees. “If you’re not walking the talk, [Millennials] won’t pay attention,” says Stewart.

Increasingly, Boomers are coming to terms with these generational differences, and are making strides to accommodate them, says Stewart. That’s to their credit. “As is often the case, with our own internal perspective, if you’re not keyed into that, you’re not aware that your perspective is different from that of others.”

Emotional intelligence is recognizing that your reality is valid, but that there are other realities formed through different experiences, she says. “How you recognize that and adapt and learn to communicate with and about different realities is all part of it.” That’s something for both managers and new hires to keep in mind.

Common themes

Despite all the differences, people are, after all, people, and they share much in common. For example, pretty much any sales rep who joins a company – regardless of age – wants to feel a sense of belonging. (Still, Stewart concedes that this need might be less acute among Gen X-ers.) Millennials, for example, were raised around participation, starting in the family, then school, then through clubs and sports teams. Their sense of belonging is pronounced.

That said, “Millennials are very different from the Boomers and Traditionalists in that they’re very clear about their needs,” says Stewart. “They really want a strong sense of validation for their employment decision.” In other words, after joining a company, they want to be “sold” that they made the right decision, and that they are the right candidate for the job. “And they want pretty regular recognition of their skills and contributions.”

Millennials need a very clear understanding of their assignment as well as the rationale for it, adds Stewart. And they want to see a very clear path of development within their first year on the job. “Especially when compared with Traditionalists, Millennials are less likely to be inclined to ‘pay their dues,’” she says. “They’ve had the opportunity throughout their upbringing to participate very effectively through all the systems they’ve been in. They don’t want to stay on the bottom rung of the ladder.” Millennials, like Boomers and Traditionalists, “want to be an active part of the group from the get-go.”

The new sales rep

Becoming an active, contributing part of a med/surg distributor – or any company, for that matter – is difficult for any new hire. But sales reps face an even tougher task, because they spend so much time in the field. They and their bosses have to try harder to ease their transition and get acclimated to the company.

“The field sales rep has unique needs beyond simply being in the field all the time,” says Stewart. “[He or she] is serving two masters – their company and their customers. That, combined with the nature of the job – being beyond the reach of internal support mechanisms – considerably affects their acclimation to a new company.”

Some companies appoint “buddies” to help new hires get acclimated and to get some key questions answered, such as, “What should I be looking out for?” Management needs to be sensitive to the recently hired field rep’s needs as well, says Stewart. “They need to be supporting that rep’s long-term career development as well as [giving them] an introduction to the territory.” The challenge for that new rep “is not only being cut off from the formal company structure, but probably even more important, being cut off from the informal networking and knowledge[-sharing] that happens casually around the office. That’s one more reason to have internal support mechanisms in place.”

New hires may use Web-based social networking services, such as Facebook or MySpace, to build relationships with peers, notes Stewart. While companies may not get directly involved with such networks, they can – and should – build communication-rich cultures. “They can do that through a variety of mechanisms, like a well-developed intranet or company blog space, and they can encourage development or supportive relationships like buddy systems or mentor systems.”

It’s important that companies extend common courtesies to all new hires. From Day One, the new rep should have business cards, a working phone line, desk and supplies. By anticipating their needs, the company lets the new hire feel welcomed and capable of contributing. “The key factor for Millennials is that they have been contributing from the outset, and they’ve had access to information from the time they were in diapers,” points out Stewart. “They’re accustomed to walking through the door and contributing and collaborating. Recognizing that and capitalizing on that is to the company’s advantage.”



Integrating tomorrow’s sales reps today



One could make the case that the first step in integrating a new sales rep into a company occurs before that person becomes a sales rep. That’s one reason 3M created the 3M Frontline program 11 years ago.

“The essence of the program is this,” says Paula Mitchell, 3M Hospital Systems’ national sales manager and 3M Frontline co-chair. “3M recognized a need to work with academic institutions to help foster and develop the idea of sales as a profession, through formal education and helping these institutions develop degree programs for people who wanted to have careers in sales.” Its first academic partner was the nearby College of St. Catherine. Since then, the company has partnered with nine additional colleges and universities.

3M has worked with the schools to define competencies required for effective salesmanship, and to help shape curriculum to develop those competencies. In addition, “[w]e have developed an opportunity for these schools to present to us their top students, whom we select for summer internships in our company,” says Mitchell, who began her career as a sales rep for 3M in Buffalo, N.Y., 35 years ago. “Subsequently, those who do well are offered positions with the company.” Mitchell is a member of 3M’s Sales and Marketing Council, which sponsors 3M Frontline.

3M’s interest in nurturing sales reps goes far beyond 3M Frontline, says Mitchell. Training at the company varies by business. “In our medical division, we have a structured process that extends over quite a long period of time.” Classroom and field education are part of the process, with specific milestones. The fact that the company’s sales reps work in teams aids the education and acculturation process, says Mitchell.

Newly hired reps are assigned informal buddies. Then, usually between Year 1 and Year 2 of their tenure, they are assigned a mentor. Mentors are volunteers who, for a year or two, agree to help new hires with their personal and professional development. They also help them simply “learn the ropes,” says Mitchell.

The fundamental needs of newly hired reps today are essentially the same as they have always been, says Mitchell. “People need to know what’s expected of them, what tools they have to work with, and how they will be measured and rewarded.”

That said, there are some differences, which managers should accommodate. “New people coming into the work force today have grown up in a world where communication is constant and instantaneous,” she says. “We all have to adapt to the needs of the current environment.”