In the midst of this economic crisis some managers have been telling me they're noticing a change in the behavior of their Generation Y employees at work. Instead of beating down the doors of their managers with unreasonable demands, these Gen Yers seem to be cowering in their cubicles, maybe paralyzed by fear. Some managers are worried about this.

At the very moment when we need our young, talented people to be digging down deep and pulling out their very best, doing more work smarter, faster and better every day, a lot of them are paralyzed by fear. Maybe they are whispering by the coffee machine about the latest rumor. Probably they are texting each other from their cubicles to try and figure out which rumor about the company is true. Which one should they be twittering about today?

What's a manager to do? You can't tell them, 'everything is OK,' because it's not. And anyway you want to maintain that sense of urgency. You can't make long-term promises because they won't believe them and you might not be able to fulfill them.

What do you do? My best advice is to make one short-term promise after another. If you want to get your young, talented people back in the game, you've got to get them focused on one short-term goal after another. And you CAN make one short-term promise after another. Set up those quid pro quos, plug in to Gen Yers' short-term transactional mind set. Get them focused on small targets in the short-term. Make one short-term deal after another. Tell them, "You go the extra mile today and here's what I'm going to do for you today and then tomorrow we'll figure out what we're going to do tomorrow." That's how you get them back in the game.

And this is a pretty good time to start looking at non-financial rewards. Maybe this is where you discover just how flexible you can be because a lot of these non-financial rewards don't cost anything. And the Gen Yers want these non-financial rewards so much. Use this as a chance to set up one short-term transaction after another; one non-financial reward after another in exchange for going the extra mile one day at a time.

BONUS MANAGEMENT TIP
Gen Yers want to hit the ground running, and on day one. But they don't want to be thrust into sink-or-swim situation either. They want to hit the ground running with lots of support and guidance every step of the way.
- Grab hold of them and don't let them go. Create intensity, connection to your mission, a feeling of shared experience and belonging to a group, steady learning, and constant challenge. It's about taking Gen Yers seriously on day one and every other day.
- Turn every employee into a knowledge worker. If you work hard to leverage information, technique, and ideas in your job, then you are a knowledge worker---at least in my world. The more you encourage them to learn while they work, the better they will do their jobs.