Company Profile
Mass Energy is one of the nation’s largest combination utility companies, providing gas and electric service to more than 6 million of Michigan’s residents. Mass Energy employs approximately 8,000 individuals, many of whom have been with the company the majority of their working years and are members of the Baby Boomer era. These individuals are approaching retirement age and are forced to work with and train a younger work force, emerging from the generations known at Generation X and Generation Y.
Culture
The culture at Mass Energy is one of formal structure; the work is divided into separate functions or departments. For example, accounting, purchasing, payroll, human resources, accounting, as well as others, make up this structure.
Each individual as Mass Energy sets goals and accomplishments each year, and from these goals and accomplishments the performance appraisal system is developed which fuels the yearly merit increases. Employees meet with supervisors quarterly to review the progress and discuss any problems or concerns either may have. This is also a time to develop job enrichment and specialization concerns that may have developed throughout the year.
Mass Energy employees are expected to display personal and professional values, such as respect, professionalism, appearance, and individual growth and learning. Mass Energy encourages employees to further their education; which, under certain terms is reimbursed by the company, increase their knowledge and skills.
The leadership at Mass Energy is one of autocratic and democratic characteristics. Certain decisions are dictated in a top-down hierarchical manner to subordinates, while other decisions are shared between management and subordinates. The type of leadership portrayed depends on the type of decisions that are to be made.
Mass Energy provides its employees with safe and ergonomic working conditions and has formed teams throughout the organization to insure all conditions are safe for its employees and ergonomically correct for the future of its employees safety and wellness.
The team environment is a strong factor throughout Mass Energy as well. Each department is made up of several different teams; these teams are required to work independently from other teams to accomplish daily goals and tasks. An efficient team environment makes for an efficient department, ultimately reflecting positively on Mass Energy as a whole.
Generation Characteristics
Baby Boomer
The Baby Boomer generation refers to the individuals born between 1946 and the early 1960s and has approximately seventy-six million boomers. Some of the characteristics of the baby boomers are difficulty managing their time and money, unlike generations before them. Baby Boomers are also faced with their parents living longer than expected, they are having children later in their lives and these children tend to seek a longer college education. These characteristics are forcing Baby Boomers to take care of their elderly parents while still taking care of their young children.
Baby Boomers are the first generation to be raised with televisions in the home, discovering rock and roll music; all of which allows this generation to form a generational identity.
Generation X
Generation X includes individuals born between 1965 and 1980, and is a much smaller generation than the Baby Boomer generation. However, Generation X members are forced to live in the shadow of the Baby Boomers. Generation X is criticized for being whiners, slackers, and the doomed generation. Generation X seeks individual freedom; associate themselves with the civil rights movement, gay and handicapped rights.
Generation Y
Generation Y are those born from the early 1980s to the early 1990s. This generation is faced with higher costs, they remain at home much later in life, are more ambitious, and tend to be more brand conscious. Generation Y sees their jobs as portraying themselves as individuals and saying something about themselves; however, Generation Y tends to change jobs more often than generations before them.
Generation Y has also seen higher divorce rates, lived in home with two working parents; causing a different type of relationship with their parents and grandparents than other generations. This generation is known for its openness in regards to sexual life-styles, expression, and experimentation; yet less likely to become attached sexual or romantically to one individual.
Corporate Integration
Being a member of Generation X, and having been employed with Mass Energy for 15 years, I have been involved in working with members of my generation as well as members of the Baby Boom era and Generation Y. My career began with the Baby Boomer generation and gradually has been integrated with other generations.
The experience of working with all three generations is remarkably different by example. From my own observation the Baby Boomers are a generation that comes to work, puts in their eight hours per day, five days a week, goes home for the weekend and starts all over again on Monday morning. They do not favor working over or coming in on the weekend; feeling the company does not acknowledge their efforts in any way, therefore, what is the point of additional effort? My thought is they are just putting in their time until they are of the retirement age and will “get on with their life”.
During my 15 years of employment at Mass Energy, I have obtained my Associates, Bachelors, and working towards my Masters Degree. I started with the company as a receptionist and felt this was not how I wanted to spend my working careers. I wanted more, wanted to make more money, make a difference, and be an important asset to the company. I have met several people of my generation with the same thoughts and ambitions, all of us working with the Baby Boomer generation and noticing a remarkable difference between our work ethics and theirs.
Recently, Generation Y has emerged as employees of Mass Energy, gradually being noticed on an individual basis through their clothes, mannerisms, hair styles, and especially their unfriendliness. Approximately 18 months ago, I entered the elevator in the morning and stood next to an individual with dreadlocks, a pierced lip, and a tattoo emerging over the collar of his shirt. I was speechless and tried my best not to stare; however at that point, I knew we were being invaded by Generation Y. This individual was just that, an individual, different from all the rest; and it was as if he did not care what he looked like or what others thought of him. He did not care to befriend anybody on that elevator, make eye contact, give a quick nod, or even the slightest smile. Although I was in shock, I am always willing to say Good Morning.
Another difference that I have noticed with Generation Y is their daily schedules. They tend to arrive to work around 9:00 a.m., gathering for a late lunch with members of their own Generation, working until 7:00 p.m.; at which time they seem to leave together and gather at a local establishment for dinner before heading home. Home usually is an apartment, where they live alone, with very few personal belongings. Befriending individuals of this generation, I have come to notice they have very few belongings since they change jobs regularly, continually looking for another job which pays more money, location of little importance. Generation Y appears to show no signs of settling down and starting a family and having one place to call “home”.
Technology
Membership in the Mid-Generation employed at Mass Energy has been a learning curve for me as an individual. Especially recently, when Mass Energy integrated an entirely new computer system, involving each individual employee. Prior to this implementation, there were approximately 100 different computer programs, developed by individual departments, all bridged together over the last 30 years. This implementation force the three Generations to come together and learn a new way of doing daily tasks, together. Since the implementation, mass amounts of Baby Boomers have chosen to retire, making way for Generation X and Generation Y to gain the majority as employees.
Making way for the younger generations may have been the drive behind the new system, pushing the Baby Boomers towards retirement, and allowing Generation X and Generation Y to become more involved and learn a new way of doing things. A new system, one developed by individuals of our Generation, for those same individuals. One will never know the thoughts behind Mass Energy’s reasons, yet I will be the first to tell you the younger Generations have picked up on the new system much quicker and understand much easier, than does the Baby Boomer Generation.
Conclusion
The information on the previous pages has provided a brief overview of the Baby Boomer Generation, Generation X, and Generation Y. From an inside point of view at Mass Energy, I have given an idea of my own experiences as a member of Generation X, working with members of the Baby Boomers and Generation Y.
As members of these Generations, what experiences have evolved in your own working careers and how have you overcome differences in work ethics, dress code, or individual relationships? Do you feel encouraging departments to develop and work as teams to accomplish tasks reflects positively on the organization as a whole? Mass Energy has formed numerous teams throughout the state to push for safe working environments and safe behavior. Do you feel having individuals’ main focus strictly on the safety of the company and its employees is important for the organization, or is safety something that should be the responsibility of the individual employees and something that employee should just be expected to be aware of? Thus eliminating the jobs of those focused on safety alone.
Please support your answers using proper APA style citing.
