Students dream of career with bigger salaries and less work

The 1980s generation do not wish to become managers or entrepreneurs

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By Pauliina Pulkkinen
     
      Finnish college and university students now approaching graduation want a job where the working week is shorter but the pay is better. Fewer and fewer of them are looking to forge a career in management, and practically nobody wants to set up in business for themselves.
      These results, which may cause indigestion to more than a few employers, come from a study in which just over 4,000 students from 21 universities and polytechnics were interviewed about their career aims and expectations.
      The respondents were all students of business subjects or would-be engineers and natural sciences graduates approaching the end of their degree courses.
     
The study was carried out by Universum Communications, a consultancy firm operating in 27 countries and charting the future hopes of students on behalf of potential recruiters. The enterprise has 47 Finnish companies among its clients.
      The students' expectations for their future place of employment have changed dramatically in the course of just one year. For example, the annual salary expectations have gone up by EUR 560, at the same time as the length of the ideal working week has shrunk by four hours. Those who have just graduated or are about to do so now want EUR 29,000 a year for their services on a 39-hour week.
     
The image of the employer has also changed "This indicates to us that the generation born in the 1980s have not done any hard work in their lives and they have no great wish to do so now. They want a comfy life without undue pressures. They could be described as comfort-loving students", says Toni Kaski, the Finnish country manager for Universum Communications.
     
This yearning for the soft life is further demonstrated by the fact that fewer and fewer want to get themselves into leadership positions. For the students, the boss's job is time-consuming, heavy, and requires commitment. On top of this, the boss is always the one who gets the flak, whether internally in the office or externally in the media. The manager's salary is certainly tempting in its way, but students in the class of 2006 appear to wish to reach this income level with rather less effort.
      Nevertheless, the fact is that managers will be required in the next decade and in the decades after that. When only a handful of the young respondents want to take up the mantle voluntarily, it means that in the Finland of the future there will be a good many who have been promoted "against their wishes".
      "What sort of motivation will they have? One could even claim that this poses a danger to Finnish business life as a whole", says Kaski.
     
Toni Kaski has been monitoring the results of such surveys, here and abroad, for several years. He notes that the comfort-zone trend has risen to the surface particularly strongly in Finland, but that similar tendencies have been visible among Swedish students. Elsewhere in the world, things are rather different.
      "It might be that those born in the 1980s have now taken on board the idea that their value as employees will grow as and when the baby-boomer generation heads into retirement. They know that employers will be looking for their services", suggests Kaski.
      In Kaski's view, the problem, and the information-gap, is that so far the employers have not reached the same conclusion. What lies ahead is a major clashing of shields, when the 80s generation takes over those jobs where the old rules of engagement still prevail.
     
Although many workplaces have noticed that the pile of job applications has shrunk somewhat, this does not necessarily mean anything has been done about the matter. Rather less than one in three companies have started to forge for themselves a brand as an employer that stands out from the mass.
      "Companies will have to recognise that they are competing in the same market for the same people. They have to consider how to make themselves noticeable and interesting", argues Kaski.
     
For all the survey's findings, it is certain that in the future work is not going to be done entirely on the terms of the 1980s generation. The students' responses demonstrate that their image of working life is often vague. When their employment experience to date has been in the form of short-term fixed contracts, they have not had much chance to hope for anything else from their employer but a decent monthly income.
      Employers can possibly also take some comfort from the information that when the young worker has first been tempted into the house, his or her system of values can be reshuffled in only a matter of months. Salaries and flexible working hours are still important, but other things emerge to challenge them, like colleagues and interesting assignments.
      And curiously enough, even the idea of sitting behind the boss's desk starts to seem less repugnant.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 27.5.2006


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Young professionals favour strong brands when choosing where to work (10.10.2005)

Links:
  Universum Communications Finnish Graduate Survey

Helsingin Sanomat