Do you think parents have limited influence over their children’s career and workplace success? Think again.
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Last month on November 4, LinkedIn® Corporation promoted the fourth annual “Bring In Your Parents Day,” a now worldwide event that encourages businesses and their leadership to open their doors to host employees’ parents for the day—giving them an inside view of the daily 9-to-5 life of their child.
In a nod to its own research showing more than 65 percent of workers believe their parents have unshared knowledge or advice that could help their career, the Mountain View, California-based business social-networking service launched the idea to foster employee engagement, a sense of family involvement and job success.
It’s a full-scale initiative. Invitations were extended to employees, managers, and parents to either attend the event in person or interact via video call or on social media. Through its dedicated “Bring In Your Parents Day” site, downloadable promotional posters and logos publicizing the event also were made available to employers wanting to take part. And a toolkit with suggested daily schedules and checklists was described as a “secret weapon for pulling off an impressive day.”
Last year, LinkedIn says more than 70 businesses opened their doors to moms and dads, up from less than 20 the first year. The hope is that parents can offer up more informed career advice to their kids, the company says, in light of the fact that its research also found that more than a third of parents surveyed feel their child is on track to be much more successful than they are professionally.
“Your parents are a great source of career advice and have provided you with countless words of wisdom throughout the years,” proclaimed the company’s site describing its event.
Over the Top?
Key message: In coming years, expect more parental outreach and more moms and dads lending a hand in the job-search and career-development game for their children—that is, your new recruits.
Some background: For years, studies have found that new college graduates, for example, gauge potential jobs and employers on such factors as opportunity for advancement, training and development, starting salary offer, and a good benefits package.
Then, starting in 2007 came insights from a survey by the Bethlehem, Pennsylvania-based National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), which showed that more than 45 percent of 2,412 students polled said their parents’ opinions of potential employers is “important” or “extremely important.”
Now comes a 2016 survey by staffing services giant OfficeTeam, which finds that nearly 30 percent of 600 senior managers of U.S. and Canadian companies say they don’t see parental involvement in their children’s’ job search as a problem. And 34 percent say that while they don’t really like it, they accept it in the interest of filling a position.
Bottom line: Like it or not, the once-unusual trend has now, in particular for certain demographic groups, become much more fully entrenched and even accepted as a part of the recruiting and retention game.
Fact or Fad?
What’s driving the movement? Bruce Tulgan, author of Not Everyone Gets a Trophy: How to Manage the Millennials (Jossey-Bass 2016), is founder of Rainmaker Thinking Inc., a generational workforce-consulting company based in New Haven, Connecticut. He believes the trend speaks to a larger relational change—one in which Millennials and other younger entrants to the workforce fully expect the wider involvement in their employment lives. On top of that, and if demographic trends hold, Gen X parents may be even more involved.
He points out, for instance, that Millennials simply get along better with their parents than previous generations did.
The proof: In a poll by Princeton, New Jersey-based The Gallup Organization, more than 90 percent of Gen Y respondents report being “very close” to their parents. By contrast, in 1974 more than 40 percent of Baby Boomers said they would be better off without theirs.
Meantime, the roughly 73 million Millennials born in the United States between 1980 and 1996 simply see work and life as very closely intertwined. Roughly 33 percent of Millennials today say their parents are very involved in their job hunt process, and when it comes time to accept a job offer, seven out of 10 college recruits say they need to speak to their parents first.
Whim or Opportunity?
While some observers call this engagement tactic a negative result of overly-involved “helicopter” parents hovering over and invading their kids’ career air space, others— including a growing list of major corporations—are taking the trend very seriously. In fact, these employers are specifically targeting their efforts to engage parents in order to woo the best job prospects.
How are they shaping their approaches? Tomorrow’s Advisor will discuss examples and offer tips on strategically managing this unconventional trend.