Risk-taking is the way forward

by Donna Miller

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Risk-taking is the way forward

What will the next generation be like?

‘The challenge is to try to understand what the next generation will be like. It’s a big question mark.’ I believe that one of the biggest ways we can improve skills for the future is by helping schools to develop risk-taking attitudes in their students, as a lack of these skills will impede the UK’s capacity to compete on the global market. 

Risk underpins many facets of life

Young people need to understand that risk underpins many facets of life, including workplace skills, creativity, enterprise, decision making and problem solving.

I wholly support Sir Digby Jones’ attack on ‘cotton wool kids’. This is the idea that we wrap up our children in so much cotton wool that we won’t even let them go into the playground to learn how to fall down, dust themselves off and get up again. If you don’t learn risk-taking and initiative, it will be very difficult to succeed later in life once you get into business.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car has partnered in an initiative called Go4It, a pilot programme from Head teachers in Industry (HTI) that started in 50 schools in the spring of 2007 and is now rolling out to all schools. It gives recognition to those schools that encourage, through their approach and culture, a free-thinking and can-do attitude across the school community of children, parents and teachers.

You can, of course, have failure from risk, but if you don’t try you will never succeed. This is something I’ve learnt in my own career, through taking jobs that didn’t previously exist or moving to new offices in different parts of the United States or in other countries. I could have taken the safe route and taken positions that were comfortable and established, but it really paid off to take those risks.

 

The workplace is changing

The workplace is changing a lot, and one of the ways it is changing is that each generation has its own ways of working. In the workforce at the moment, there are four generations working side-by-side. They approach and respond to work differently, and their attitude towards the team can be quite distinct.

There is a group just coming into the workforce that is the first generation to have had much of their life planned out for them, with little space for free time – from structured play dates and extra-curricular lessons to what happens to them educationally. They are coming into the workplace and their boss says “this is your responsibility, now go do it” and they have to figure out what to do. This can be very new for them, as previously someone else has structured their life.

The workplace needs to change and adapt to this new generation and to understand them. It’s easy for my generation to get frustrated, but we must try to appreciate what motivates these young people and what they can bring to a company. For example, the younger generations are often not afraid to speak up. They are not afraid to contact the chairman and say they have an idea, whereas older generations would not consider doing this.

At Enterprise Rent-A-Car, a lot of our great ideas have come from newer employees, because they look at how we do things and think there is a better way.

Time is more valuable than money

For the new generation time is more valuable than money. If you are holding a contest at work and offer either extra money or half a day off, older generations usually take the money, but the new generation takes the time. For them, time is a currency.

The challenge is to try to understand what the next generation will be like. It’s a big question mark. I was on the train the other day sitting opposite a three year old girl who was on her dad’s lap. She was playing with his mobile phone, which also had a camera and a video camera. She knew exactly how to operate all the functions on the phone, and I was looking at her and thinking that I wouldn’t have a clue how to do that.

So technology will play a huge part in whatever the future holds, and the workplace needs to adapt to a future generation that will be very technically literate and that is also likely to place a lot of emphasis on work-life balance.

If this capacity to understand technology can be combined with an understanding of and willingness to take risks and be innovative, then the future of the workplace will be very exciting.

 

About the author:

Donna Miller is Human Resources Director, Europe, at Enterprise Rent-A-Car. She oversees all aspects of people development for the company in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Germany, covering more than 4,700 employees. Donna is also a board member of the Association of Graduate Recruiters.