"Helicopter Parents" Land in the Workplace It might not surprise you to hear that the average parent spends $2,200 per child each year on food, housing, education, and spending money.
But, it might startle you to learn that the “children” being supported are aged 18 to 34.
This major trend, called “deferred adulthood,” has been addressed in prior issues.
According to a 2004 University of Michigan study, the average 18- to 34-year-old receives $38,000 from his or her parents during those years.
In fact, according to U.S. News & World Report,1 the number of Americans aged 18 to 34 who are still living with ?- and off ? their parents has increased by 50 percent since the 1970s.
The Census Bureau reports that even among 25- to 34-year-old Americans, who are typically well beyond their college years, 11 percent still live with their parents.
This is a 26 percent increase from the 8.7 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds who lived with their parents in 1980.
In the past few years alone, this trend has been exploding. Craig Brimhall, the vice president of retirement wealth strategies for Ameriprise Financial, found that from the years 2000 to 2004, the number of adult children who lived with their parents and were supported by them soared by almost 70 percent.2
Clearly, today’s young adults are in no hurry to grow up.
They are marrying later, taking longer to finish their educations, and waiting until later in life to leave their parents’ homes.
And, when they are finally ready to leave the comfort of their parents’ nest and get a full-time job, they are not suddenly acting like mature, independent adults.
Instead, they are taking their parents with them into the job market.
According to The Wall Street Journal,3 several recent episodes highlight this growing trend:
? At Boeing, a recruit brought his mother into the interview with the hiring manager.
? At General Electric, when the company extended a job offer to a recruit, the candidate’s mother called the following day to ask for a higher salary for her child.
? At Enterprise Rent-A-Car, when a recruiting manager was talking on the phone to a candidate about a job, the candidate’s mother picked up an extension and demanded to know what benefits the company was offering.
? At the Vanguard Group, when the investment management firm makes job offers to college recruits, 70 percent of them respond, “Let me talk to my parents. I’ll get back to you.”
? At Pella Corporation, the window company’s strategic staffing manager reports receiving calls from parents of candidates, either to complain that their son or daughter should have been hired or to ask for a higher salary.
What is going on here? It seems that parents of Millennial Generation children are simply taking the next logical step in their hands-on approach to each phase of their children’s lives, from the crib all the way to the corporation.
In grammar and high school, parents protest their children’s poor grades to teachers and principals.
They complain to the coaches of sports teams if their children don’t get enough playing time.
Even in college, some parents of today’s students are so involved in the admissions process that, according to the Wall Street Journal, university officials have a name for them: “helicopter parents.”
These parents hover over their children as they fill out applications, tour campuses, and request financial aid, then swoop in to rescue them whenever they run into an obstacle.
Once their children are accepted at college, helicopter parents continue to make their presence known.
They phone their children to wake them up for class each morning.
They call the college to find out if their children’s classes will be canceled when it is snowing.
They meet with professors to argue about their children’s grades.
They e-mail the university president to ask for different roommates for their children.
Mark McCarthy, the assistant vice president and dean of student development at Marquette University, told the Washington Post4 that helicopter parents are common on the nation’s campuses because they’ve never stopped protecting their kids.
“[Millennials] have been the most protected and programmed children ever ? car seats and safety helmets, play groups and soccer leagues, cell phones and e-mail. The parents of this generation are used to close and constant contact with their children, and vice versa.”
This doesn’t mean that all adult children want their parents to act this way. Experience Inc., a career-services firm, found that 25 percent of young adults surveyed said their parents were “overly involved to the point that their involvement was either annoying or embarrassing.”
Thirty-eight percent of the college students in the online poll by Experience Inc. said their parents had participated in their meetings with academic advisors, either by phone or in person. Thirty-one percent admitted that their parents had called professors to complain about a grade.
Now, as the Millennials are graduating from college and entering the workforce, their parents should be finally letting go. But they’re not. Instead, they are influencing their sons’ and daughters’ choice of careers, accompanying them to job interviews, and even negotiating their salaries.
Moreover, this isn’t just an American phenomenon.
In Japan, the Daily Yomiuri5 reports that Takasaki University of Commerce is creating an office to offer information on student’s job search activities to their parents.
Shogo Ichikawa of the Center for National University Finance and Management said, “In the past, it was unthinkable for parents to monitor their children’s job hunting, but nowadays parents take care of their children until they reach the age of 30.”
This is particularly true in Japan, where the plunging birth rate has put more pressure on the fewer number of children to succeed and to provide for their parents in retirement.
Meanwhile, in India, many IT professionals live with their parents, so U.S. companies are learning to include the parents in their efforts to build morale and loyalty.
For example, Business Week reports that in 2004 IBM acquired the fifth-largest outsourcing company in India, called Daksh.
The CEO of Daksh, Sanjeev Aggarwal, now sends letters to the parents of his employees to let them know about promotions and awards. He invites the parents to open houses at the office so they can see it isn’t a sweatshop, and he shows them videos about IBM’s values.
Looking ahead, this trend of helicopter parents in the workplace leads us to the following four forecasts:
First, for better or worse, it will become increasingly necessary to include parents in the hiring process.
Some American companies are already inviting parents to attend recruiting events, and giving job candidates the option to have copies of offer letters sent to their parents.
Second, it may be necessary to dedicate some resources to managing the parents of new employees.
Some companies will assign a staff member to answer parents’questions by telephone and e-mail, or they will schedule orientation sessions for the parents of new employees.
Third, it will become equally important to create policies that set limits on the access of employees’ parents in the workplace.
Because colleges have more experience at dealing with intrusions by helicopter parents, their responses provide a time-tested model that corporations can adopt.
For example, the Washington Post6 reports that some campuses no longer allow parents to visit classrooms; teachers are refusing to talk to parents who are too aggressive; some private schools have inserted clauses in their enrollment contracts warning that a student can be dismissed because of a parent’s behavior; and some schools have actually expelled students because their parents are too much trouble.
The Wall Street Journal7 reveals that the University of Vermont uses “parent bouncers” to keep parents out of registration.
Expect to see many of these ideas adapted to the workplace.
Fourth, Millennials who were raised by helicopter parents will present a new set of challenges for employers once they are hired.
Because they are used to structure, they will need clear job descriptions and specific instructions about what they are expected to achieve.
The Wall Street Journal’s Career Journal8 Web site recommends that companies give Millennial MBAs more than the typical amount of feedback and praise.
These employees are less likely to display creativity, leadership, or independent thinking than MBAs of previous generations, so they will need more support and guidance.
And they will be more concerned than previous generations about work-life balance, so they will place a high value on schedules that do not require them to work evenings and weekends. References List :
1. U.S. News & World Report, December 12, 2005, “The Parent Trap: Boomerang Kids,” by Nisha Ramachandran. ⓒ Copyright 2005 U.S. News & World Report, L.P. All rights reserved.
2. The Wall Street Journal, April 2, 2006, “Beware of Mooching Kids,” by Glenn Ruffenach. ⓒ Copyright 2006 by Dow Jones & Company. All rights reserved.
3. The Wall Street Journal, March 16, 2006, “Helicopter Parents Go to Work,” by Sue Shellenbarger. ⓒ Copyright 2006 by Dow Jones & Company. All rights reserved.
4. Washington Post, March 21, 2006, “Putting Parents in Their Place: Outside Class,” by Valerie Strauss. ⓒ Copyright 2006 by The Washington Post Company
5. Daily Yomiuri, May 18, 2005, “Parents Help Out in Job Hunt.” ⓒ Copyright 2005 by The Daily Yomiuri. All rights reserved.
6. Washington Post, March 21, 2006, “Putting Parents in Their Place: Outside Class,” by Valerie Strauss. ⓒ Copyright 2006 by The Washington Post Company
7. The Wall Street Journal Online, July 29, 2005, “Colleges Ward Off Overinvolved Parents,” by Sue Shellenbarger. ⓒ Copyright 2005 by Dow Jones & Company. All rights reserved. o www.collegejournal.com
8. The Wall Street Journal Online, February 14, 2006, “Millennial M.B.A.s Prompt BSchools to Shift Gears,” by Ronald Alsop. ⓒ Copyright 2006 by Dow Jones & Company. All rights reserved. o www.collegejournal.com
