Happy Monday. It’s John Garrett with another episode of Green Apple Slices. I have the partner in crime cohost, accountants’ group leader for Sage in Canada, Rachel Fisch.

Rachel: Hey, John. How are you?

John: Great. I’m working on my inflection. As a speaker, when I speak at conferences, they say that inflection keeps the audience entertained and amused and engaged.

Rachel: Sure.

John: But yeah, but we always to an article that we find online about culture, engagement, things like that, how to make work a better place to be since we’re there a lot. This is an article business in the workplace independent.ie. It’s I guess a more Irish European-based.

Rachel: Irish.

John: But they’re part of the mother ship with Canada. You guys are like cousins.

Rachel: We’re part of the commonwealth, yeah.

John: Oh, the commonwealth, my bad. Mother ship, same thing. But yeah, the article is How Understanding the Needs of Millennial Employees Can Improve Your Business. It was more of a Q&A thing. Q with a long A, I guess.

Rachel: Short Q, long A, yeah.

John: Yeah, long A. But I just like to say that it’s not a millennial thing at all. It’s a human thing.

Rachel: It’s a human thing, absolutely.

John: I wanted these exact same things that the millennials have when I came out of school graduating from Notre Dame, went to PricewaterhouseCoopers. I wanted the same things that they do. It’s just they have the Internet and they can go and work wherever they want anytime they want, where we’ve barely had email and — so it’s not a millennial thing. The sooner that people understand that, the sooner everyone’s going to be okay with it because it’s not a millennial thing at all. We all want these things. It’s just they have the guts to stand up and say it and take action if it doesn’t happen.

Rachel: I totally agree. It was kind of funny because it’s funny that this article follows last week’s article which was talking about the surgence or resurgence or insurgence, I don’t know. Anyway, people are talking a lot about employee engagement. In that article, it was talking about these millennials are the ones that are making us talk about it. I’m like what? No, it’s just other people accepted things maybe more readily in the workplace than I think millennials. It’s kind of funny because when you look at the question, when you look at the answer, it’s like how to understand millennials? They’re this breed of subhuman or a pair of human like — no, they’re people of a certain age group.

That’s it, but they’re people who have never not had internet. We’re not trying to cater to a certain type of people. We’re trying to get this stuff right as employers now realizing when we’re talking about the increased productivity and profitability. These other elements, sometimes invisible elements are just as crucial to those as communication or as the actual task at hand, that incorporating culture or a positive culture in the workplace actually makes everybody more productive and more profitable. But you’re absolutely right.

The reason why, this is even now an option or why they’re demanding flexible work hours is because we now have the technological capabilities to have flexible work hours or you can work from anywhere. I think that dumping these all on a certain age group of human really isn’t fair or necessary. But let’s just talk about what we can be doing organizational wide for all age groups to make sure that they’re all feeling fulfilled and engaged and that they really enjoy where they’re working.

John: Everything that a millennial is asking for is, if you were to offer that to a baby boomer, they’re not going to turn it down.

Rachel: Absolutely, not.

John: It’s just that the baby boomers never thought to even ask for it or maybe they thought to ask for it but didn’t have the guts to.

Rachel: Or didn’t know it was possible.

John: Exactly. But we have learned that the way of working is better with these things that the millennials happen to want. It makes work better for everybody. What it boils down to here too was just talking about how — I love this, how they had a survey where 48% of millennials now believe that corporations behave ethically. It’s like — so that’s the baby boomer’s fault.

Rachel: Because they’re maybe acting ethically.

John: Yeah. That your corporations are not making ethical decisions not because of the millennials. It’s not the millennials that are ruining this. It’s that businesses have stopped caring about their people. And so therefore the people stop caring about the businesses in the firms that hire them. It’s that simple. It really is. It says here, if you want to retain talent, then just start showing employees that they can make a positive change both within their firm and company and also society in the world, and that you know if you have hobbies and passions and interests outside of work which is the whole green apple message, then we care about that because we hired the whole person not just the accountant part or the lawyer part or the consultant part. We hired all of you. And so we should nurture and cherish all of you as opposed to just the part that we feel that we can get money from. That’s what it all boils down to. So that’s it.

Rachel: That’s it.

John: Yeah. If you want to read the article, check it out at greenapplepodcast.com. I got a survey there that will take about 60 seconds. It’ll be for the book I’m writing. Also follow us on Twitter and don’t forget to hit subscribe, so you don’t miss any of the episodes every Monday with Rachel and every Wednesday interviewing a different person that’s known for a hobby or passion or interest outside of work. If that’s you or someone you know, let me know because I’d love to have them on as a guest. That’s it. Rachel, have a great rest of the week and keep enjoying your anniversary of Sage employment.

Rachel: Yes. One year tomorrow. Yeah, thanks.

John: There it is. Have fun.

Rachel: Okay.

John: All right. Thank.

Rachel: You too.

John: Bye.