Hey, millennial managers! How are you feeling?
Millennials have been the largest generation in the workforce since 2016, according to data from Pew Research Center. And as they’ve advanced in their careers, stepping into management roles, many have taken to TikTok to share their experiences as bosses.
Rick Hammell, founder and CEO of workforce management software company Helios, was inspired to document his journey as a millennial manager in his 2021 book, Getting Sh*t Done!: The Millennial CEO.
Hammell, who started his career in HR, spoke with HR Brew about the value that millennials bring to the modern workplace, and the lessons he has learned as a young business leader.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What are some HR takeaways from your book?
HR is dynamic…there’s not really a rule book on how to do HR, because HR [is] all based on the culture that you’re looking at and implementing within an organization…An organization that has less than 50 employees, and they’re all in one location…They’re going to have a very different culture than a remote organization that has employees all over the world, different languages, and different time zones…There’s never a one way that’s the best way…HR has to really think about HR as an evolving puzzle that you have to constantly try to figure out how to solve, because every time you add a new person into your culture, it changes your culture, changes your dynamic.
What career experiences did you share in the book?
When I talk about diversity and inclusion, I use the example of North America and how we define diversity and inclusion. I remember going down to Brazil, where I had about 50 employees, and I was toting that—as the CEO, I said, “Look, we’re a diverse company. We really focus on a diverse, and equitable, and inclusive environment.” And I had one of my employees call me out and said, “When you look at diversity in Brazil, it’s very different than the US. We’re not actually diverse here.”
Brazil [has a population of about 50%] African descent. And I think we had two people in our entire organization that were of African descent in Brazil. And for me, as an American, I was looking at it, and I was like…We [have] Brazilians, Colombians, and that checked the box…For someone to call me out and say, that’s actually not the case. Diversity is not just a US statistic. It’s diversity from a localization perspective…That’s something I brought into the book…how to strip your own unique biases and your localized biases, and to really think about it from a much broader, more global perspective.
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How did you come up with the book title?
There’s a theme in any organization, especially when you’re in startup mode, and we used to just say…we have to get shit done…When I wrote the book, it was a nod to my staff, who really helped me get there by getting it done. And the reason why I used the title “millennial CEO” is that there’s a different mentality in each generation. I think the millennials, we are very unique, where we grew up, and we didn’t have the internet initially, and then as we got older, we had the internet…And we saw our parents, how they work, and their work ethic, and figured out how to become ourselves from that.
I could call us the most transformative age group right now, because we’ve seen the old school, and we’re part of the new school, and we’re young enough to still be evolving, and investing, and growing in the new school. And that really makes us very unique as leaders in the world…We’ve had a lot of changes in our lifetimes.
Do you have advice for other millennial leaders?
You don’t ever want to be a leader that doesn’t learn…I remember when I started my business, I knew HR, I knew the rules, and it was very militant. I talk to that journey of learning to soften up and evolve into a true leader, evolving from what you consider a boss to someone that’s considered a leader. I think that this book talks through what that journey is…You’re not born a CEO. You’re made into a CEO, and that’s made through your experiences. And some of those experiences are mistakes and failures, and you become a better leader through both. And so the book really talks through that, and it talks through an HR perspective. And how to realize that your most important value [is] your people, and that your people have to see that you’re going to roll up your sleeves and really support them.