Taking Risks and Doing Things Differently

They don’t necessarily want to climb the same corporate ladders that their parents did. They care less about being master of a trade, and more about being proficient at a number of skills. And they want to see results — now.

“They” are the young professionals of the Santa Clarita Valley’s business community.

While young men and women once emerged fresh-faced from college and dove into decades-long career paths, today’s young professionals expect to change jobs frequently and develop multiple skills, surveys and reports indicate.

They are impatient with the concept of joining the corporate world and working their way up. Instead, they want to jump right in and do it all, said Debbie Holbrook, vice president of membership for the Junior Chamber International Santa Clarita Valley chapter (www.scvjaycees.com).

“If we need an answer to something, we go on the Internet and find it instantly,” Holbrook said of the young generation of professionals.

But the instant-gratification expectation can be a double-edged sword, she conceded.

Young people can bring a lot to the table for their employer, she said, but the business that hires them needs to be adaptable. That can include shifting responsibilities and varying duties “to make things movable and new.”

Holbrook has been a member of the SCV chapter of Junior Chamber International — referred to as Jaycees — since 2001. The group focuses on young business leaders and entrepreneurs, many in their late 20s to early 30s.

Holbrook, 35, who works in Princess Cruises’ marketing department, said the SCV Jaycees’ roster includes everyone from corporate employees to self-employed entrepreneurs.

Going His Own Way

College just wasn’t right for Nathaniel Victor. Ten years ago, while still in high school, the Santa Clarita resident got into car audio systems and founded electronics distributor Sonic Electronix.

After a year and a half in college, he decided to go full-bore into business.

Ten years later, his business is going strong with the addition of a second distribution center in Kentucky and plans to open a retail location.

In addition, Victor, 27, owns a Pita Pit franchise in Valencia, which he purchased and reopened after it closed about a year ago.

Based in a two-story building on Avenue Crocker, Sonic Electronix takes in a call center and a sprawling warehouse stacked full of everything from car audio components to digital cameras and cell phone accessories. An automobile audio retail shop is under construction downstairs.

“I had people who told me not to do car stereos,” Victor said. “To me, it’s a matter of taking risks and being willing to do different things.”

Victor said that’s an attitude he likes to see in employees.

“I like when kids go and try to do what I did. It makes you work hard,” he said. “I applaud the kids who give it the effort.”

The CEO said while today’s Webcentric, fast-paced culture has instilled an immediate-results attitude in the younger generation, he strives to instill the ethic of hard work.

“A lot of youth that are hired, they want handouts,” he said. “They don’t want to do the hard work. ... We try to groom the kids we get in here.”

While technology has changed the way business is done — and shaped a younger work force’s expectations — Victor said at the end of the day a worker still needs to prove himself or herself.

“I have guys and girls who started at minimum wage making $40,000 to $50,000 a year,” he said. “They gave it their all.”

Victor said he likes to promote from within whenever possible, and added that Sonic’s human-resources department is going to start offering classes in management and other skills to better equip employees.

Bridging The Generation Gap

When it comes to the divide between older business owners and younger employees, there’s a lot of good on the side of the latter, said Ken Keller, president of consulting group Renaissance Executive Forums.

“They tend to be action oriented,” he said of young employees. But these workers can also be impatient.

“They want things to happen. They don’t do real well with regulations. They resent the people who say you have to earn your stripes. They’re assets we wouldn’t consider assets, but they are,” Keller said.

At the end of the day, the immediate results nature of a younger work force should be capitalized on by businesses, he advised.

“What the older crowd needs to do is stop micro-managing,” Keller said. “Give specific goals, provide the tools and resources and pretty much get out of the way.”

That said, the consultant noted there has to be a give-and-take relationship, particularly since an older business owner is likely hesitant to “turn the keys to the kingdom over to someone young and untested.”

Seeing Through Younger Eyes

Rather than regulation, there’s a preference for collaboration at work among Generation Y, those born after the early 1980s, according to a recent San Francisco Chronicle report released by Scripps Howard News Service.

A survey of 800 young people in the United States and United Kingdom concluded:

• Collaboration, shared responsibility and consensus rule in the work place dominated by Gen Y.

• These young employees will always be searching for other work. The No. 1 reason for switching jobs among those surveyed was: “Just needed a change.”

• The average 26-year-old changed jobs seven times from the time he or she was 17 years old.

• “Seniority” and “tenure” are dirty words for Gen Y. Authority is earned and proved through direct interaction, not given blindly based on titles and experience.

Keller said young employees enter the work force expecting a life of change, particularly as America wades through a continued recession.

“Older owners are much more … into security and value tenure,” he said.