I’ve heard them called by many names as of late: Generation Y, Gen Y, The Plug-and-Play Generation, The Gotta-Feel-Good Generation. What they’re all referring to is the new young generation - our current 20-somethings. Every generation “deals” with the generation who comes after them. Their different views, their different ways of doing things, and so on; this generation is no exception.

Why is everyone talking about this new generation now though? They’ve been coming along for years. They’re in their 20’s now, after all! Because now they’re starting to impact the workforce and because we couldn’t predict their group characteristics until we saw them in action. In some ways they’re changing the landscape for the better, in some ways we oldies would say for the worse.

Regardless of the nostalgia we feel for the “old days” this generation is plunging headlong into the workforce and will impact you and your business at some point. There’s really no sense fighting it. No generation has ever changed the generation which came after it; not once that generation reached its 20’s anyway. These are the kids we raised and we did raise them this way, so let’s figure out how to work with them. To work with them we first need to understand them.

What makes this generation tick (or turn off) and what is the impact on businesses looking to hire them?

Problem: They’re not called The Plug-and-Play Generation for nothing. This generation grew up on video games and television while their parents were out working and making (what they viewed as) better lives for their families. This led to a whole generation of children, now entering the workforce, who need instant gratification in whatever it is they do. Whether its work or play, the satisfaction must be immediate.

Solution: What this means to the business owner looking to hire qualified workers is that you need to be diligent in assigning tasks to (or rather asking the worker if they’d be happy to do the tasks) that they enjoy doing. You must challenge this generation to the capacity in which they want to be challenged.

Problem: This generation waits for nothing and no one. If they don’t like the game, they find a new game to play and new people to play it with - now - not tomorrow or next week. Simple as that. Think pulling the PS2 game out of the player and inserting one they think they may like better.

Solution: This goes back to speed again. They’re used to moving at the speed of the internet, not the speed of the horseless carriage. You’re going to have to give this generation what it’s looking for or prepare to lose them. Regular check-ins individually to gauge their interest and excitement is critical to keeping this generation happy and working for you.

Problem: The Generation Y’s demand that they feel good about what they’re doing. If they don’t feel good about it, they’re not going to do it. Again, simple as that and no amount of money will convince them otherwise. Remember: they watched their parents work and work and work to earn a few extra bucks and what did it get them? Absentee parents who were rich. This generation wants quality, not necessarily quantity.

Solution: Sometimes the work just isn’t all that gratifying. However, you can combat that by showing your gratitude in the work being done. Often the sheer pleasure of helping someone else and that person being grateful is enough for the worker to receive the gratification they need.

Problem: The generation of ADD. Oh yes, this is where ADD became popular. The Gen Y’s are not going to pay attention for long. They want their information fast and to the point.

Solution: Don’t waste time with long drawn out memos and information. Just shoot it straight and fast!

Problem: A recent study suggested that the average tenure in a job for Generation Y’s is 18 months. Wow, what happened to life, or even a few years? Unfortunately those days are but a memory. As older workers retire and leave the workforce, we’re left with the generation we raised and we need to count on them to fill the open positions within our companies. Remember again that this generation watched their parents stick in jobs for life, only to be spat out by the very corporations and unions who claimed they’d protect them - when they were juuuuuusssst about to collect that pension. The Generation Y’s aren’t going to hang around to let that happen to them.

Solution: There’s no changing this generation’s stick ability. So as a business owner you have two options: 1) Make the work enjoyable or 2) Prepare in advance for every single worker’s eventual departure. If you opt with number 1, you need to figure out what it is that makes each and every one of your workers happy. They must be regarded as the individuals they are and with their own set of needs and instructions. Prepare to meet those needs or move on to number 2: The most crucial thing any business owner can do is to have instructions written for every task that is performed within their company. Put all those instructions in a safe place and hang on to them so you can pass them on to the worker’s successor. In staffing, one of the biggest complaints we hear from clients is the need to retrain the next person. I’m sorry - that’s the way it is nowadays. We train and we retrain and we need to be ready for it.

Problem: Lack of office etiquette. Check out this recent article on Yahoo! News about modern office etiquette (and lack of it) finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/careerist/40342. Unfortunately, as the article suggests, the new generation may not even know they’re breaking the rules! Etiquette in their world is far different than that of other generations.

Solution: As my husband and business partner says, “But wrong is still wrong and right is still right”. However, with the internet and a new generation, is this perhaps the new “right”. Maybe, maybe not. If most families are dysfunctional, doesn’t dysfunction become the new “normal”? Unfortunately I think the new generation has us beat in sheer numbers folks. In this writer’s opinion there’s not much we can do but learn to deal.

Problem: As another article finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/careerist/38889 on Gen Y’s by Penelope Trunk suggests: “They won’t play the face-time game.” That means they’re not going to sit in the office just to make you happy. They know that work can be done from home (or from the beach) just as well as it can be done sitting in the office.

Solution: Let ‘em work from home! Why not!? Working from home offers the ultimate in flexibility (something this generation demands) and helps keep this generation of workers happy and working for you.

As a virtual staffing agency, we deal with the same things as you do day in and day out. We’re not immune to the caveats of Generation Y. We deal with the unique issues of this generation through increased back end staff which checks in with and coaches our virtual assistants regularly. We also take great pains to make good matches between clients and virtual assistants and quickly offer to change assignments if it doesn’t “feel right” for the virtual assistant.

Yes, this (generation’s issues) results in a higher turnover of virtual assistants but no higher than what you’d experience in the bricks and mortar world. In many respects we shield our clients from the impacts of turnover by quickly locating new help, interviewing and screening for the right skills and attitude. But even as a virtual staffing agency, we still can’t change a generation or their attitudes so we can’t stop the turnover - we can help our clients get through the turnover.

Even with a high-turnover generation, companies can still benefit from all of the pluses of virtual assistance and virtual staffing. The cost savings over hourly in-office staff still exist; office politics is still absent; the speed of bringing in additional help is still present; the benefits of not having someone sitting in your office holds ground; start up capitol needed (desks, computers, phone lines) of hiring help is not a concern; and ultimate flexibility still exists.

In many ways, hiring virtually is a great way to deal with the issues businesses must face with this generation. This generation wants flexibility. Working virtually offers the ultimate in flexibility, which helps keep the generation happy. Virtual staffing fits this generation like a glove and is one of the best ways to put them to work for you.

If you’d like more information on how to set up a virtual office, please check our article at teamdoubleclick.com/news/free_articles/SetupYourVirtOffice.html.

These days everyone is talking about going green: green building, green recycling, and green commuting, green EVERYTHING! And with good reason; all reports indicate that global warming is on the increase; various animal species are on the decrease and near extinction. Much of this is due to the way we, and generations before us, have treated the planet.

As I read a recent copy of Backpacker magazine, the Global Warming issue, I thought about how truly “green” working and hiring virtually really is. I’ve always had it in the back of my mind, of course, but until I read more in-depth how we’re destroying our planet and what’s being done about it, I had a hard time relating the greenness of it all.

So what do we do to help the planet when we work and hire virtually?

• Assuming you own a vehicle with a whopping 30mpg and your daily commute is 30 miles each way and you worked at a bricks-and-mortar office (or forced your administrative assistant to drive to a bricks-and mortar office each day) 5 days a week, you (or your assistant) would emit 9,860 pounds of carbon each into the atmosphere per year! So if you hire a virtual assistant, as well as work virtually yourself, you would SAVE an amazing 19,720 pounds of carbon emissions per year. Source: Stanford University’s emissions calculator: transportation.stanford.edu/alt_transportation/calculator.shtml. Be sure to stop by the website and calculate your carbon emissions.

• While it’s hard to gauge exactly how much paper is used in a bricks-and-mortar office, what I can tell you is that our use of paper has gone down significantly since starting Team Double-ClickSM, a 100% virtual business. In the old days it was nothing to order as many as 10 cases (yes 50,000+ sheets of paper) in any given month. With a virtual business and by utilizing virtual assistants for 100% of the company’s work, we’re pushing a lot of paper if we use more than 2 reams (1,000) sheets a month. So again, working virtually wins: save on trees, save on carbon emissions caused by the processing and shipping of all those trees, which make all that paper.

• If we’re using less paper; we’re using fewer ink toners and cartridges

• What about the carbon footprint we leave when we eat all of that fast food when we eat out while working at a bricks-and-mortar office? One article openthefuture.com/cheeseburger_CF.html suggests that each of us, by eating three fast-food hamburgers per week, contributes to the emission of 1,188 to 2,013 pounds of carbon per year (this includes the energy used in the cooking of the burger as well as the commute to the burger joint). When you’re working virtually, you usually greatly reduce the number of times per week you eat out, thus reducing your carbon footprint once again. And you tend to use reusable containers instead of all those throw-aways.

• Most of us who work virtually also utilize virtual fax and phone systems, which again reduce our carbon footprint through reduced electrical carbon costs as well as reduced paper usage.

• If you have kids and you work in a bricks-and-mortar office (or if your assistant is forced to work in a bricks-and-mortar office) you’re contributing to greater emissions with all of those trips to pick up and drop off the kids at daycare.

• While I couldn’t find any figures on the carbon footprint left from dry cleaning, we can safely assume it’s considerable. Working virtually significantly reduces the need for carbon-costly dry cleaning.

• Think about the “green” space we save by reducing the number of office buildings being put up.

• We hear about green building (the use of reclaimed or recycled building materials) often, but what about totally eliminating the need for that new building. This act alone reduces the carbon footprint in materials-savings.

• Let’s talk about the carbon-cost of powering a huge office space. Working virtually, you only have to power the room that you are working in

• Working virtually, you have the ability to choose green desks, packaging and materials

• And the most fun “green” feature of working virtually is the envy of all of your bricks-and-mortar friends, family, and associates!

As you can see, working and hiring virtually makes a significant impact on the reduction of ozone-depleting greenhouse gasses and reduces your carbon footprint. Team Double-Click and its staff (both internal and outsourced) have worked virtually since 2000 and are proud to contribute to a better planet for our children. If you’re interested in hiring or working virtually and helping the planet, be sure to visit us at .teamdoubleclick.com.

For more information on working green, please visit .treehugger.com/files/2006/12/how_to_green_your_work.php#top10.

How often do you wish to be freer? Living in America, we’re afforded more freedom than in any other part of the world. We can go anywhere we want without asking permission of our Government. We can hold any job we want for anyone who will hire us, as long as it’s legal of course. We can marry or cohabitate with anyone we want &ndash gender regardless. We can start and run businesses. Our freedom is one of the most coveted rights we have as Americans. Yet we tie ourselves to offices and desks and towns and schools and so on. Why? Why not enjoy more freedom? Why be tied to all of those things if you don’t have to be? Why wish; why not do?

Almost 14 years ago, Jim, my now husband and business partner and I were married in the beautiful little mountain town of Ouray (pronounced you-ray) in Colorado. I’d seen the town and fallen in love with it when I was a teenager and I somehow convinced him to get married there, site unseen. Well, he fell in love with the town too. Since that day 14 years ago, it’s been our dream to live in Ouray. For many years we couldn’t do it. We were tied to typical corporate jobs, desks, land line phones, a business that at the time wasn’t mobile, and all of the other things we Americans tie ourselves to. It just wasn’t possible.

Last year, while vacationing in Ouray, it was nearly unbearable for us to leave. Our business was mobile (I’ll get to that in a minute) so our biggest problem with making a cross country move like we were proposing was school for our daughter who would be entering 6th grade that fall.

We started looking into home schooling and any other options we could find. We found an online (virtual) grade school, middle school, and high school called Christa McAuliffe Academy .cmacademy.org. We enrolled our daughter and started making plans to move to Colorado.

So in addition to our business being “virtual” our daughter’s school is virtual as well. Heck, we’re a totally virtual family! We could work and school from Timbuktu if we wanted to, if they had internet connection there of course.

Back to our business being virtual. What many of you may not know is that Team Double-Click is 100%, purely, totally, and undeniably virtual. The company has but two employees &ndash me and my husband and we both work from offices located in our home. Because we both talk so much and so loud, yes, we have separate offices or I’m afraid we’d strangle each other! As for our “core staff” as we refer to them, they’re located all over the country and work from their home offices. They’re contracted &ndash not employees and they work in places like Florida, Missouri, California, Idaho, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Arizona, and many other states. So true to what we preach as a virtual staffing agency, we are 100% virtual.

To facilitate the virtual atmosphere and the virtual working environment, we utilize virtual phone systems, virtual fax systems, online accounting programs, online CRM programs, and rely heavily on email, instant messenger, and the telephone to communicate and carry on our day-to-day business. Editor’s note: If you’d like more information on the components Team Double-Click uses to facilitate their virtual office, such as fax and phone systems, check out Gayle’s article Setting Up Your Virtual Office at .teamdoubleclick.com/news/free_articles/SetupYourVirtOffice.html.

So what all of this virtual stuff means is that we can very easily go to conferences and work while we’re away &ndash provided we have an internet connection. When we were in the process of moving, we kept in touch by stopping along the way to check email and of course we spoke to our staff via cell phone regularly. We can easily vacation most any time we’d like (though we tend not to because we enjoy our work), again because we can connect anytime via the internet and phone!

The virtual aspects of our life are so liberating and so freeing because we can literally pick up and go anywhere, anytime we want to without worrying about phones going unanswered, about who will open the office, who will do this and who will do that. Our virtual-ness also made our move from Wisconsin to Colorado a breeze!

If you’re at all hesitant about making your company “virtual”, or working virtually, any one of our core staff members, virtual assistants, or clients would be happy to tell you how great and how freeing it is. Additionally, our core staff are more than happy to help you take the steps to make it happen and show you the ropes. I encourage everyone to start enjoying the added freedom you deserve as an American and work virtually!