Translated from french by Emily Hong.Out of a lack of foresight, flexibility, and confidence in their employees, traditional businesses no longer know how to recruit and retain the top talent – people who think and work outside the box.
This cohort is no longer content to work in stifling, bureaucratic settings, preferring instead to try their luck in more creative spaces and find alternate forms of employment. Ironically, this is exactly the kind of worker that businesses need to adapt to 21st century challenges. In the 2002 film L’Auberge Espagnole, the director Cedric Klapisch captured the zeitgeist of this generation with a single scene: drunk on freedom, Xavier (Romain Duris) literally flees instead of starting an office job at the French Ministry of Finance. Today, this generation is between 25 and 35 years of age, and make up the groundswell of support at events aimed at promoting entrepreneurship, innovation, the collaborative economy, or social impact enterprise. The evidence is clear: “The Exit” is fast becoming a proper social movement, as more and more young people leave conventional jobs with conventional employers. In France, this phenomenon is growing even despite the perks that come with stable employment through a “Contrat à Durée Indeterminée,” or open-ended contract: a comfortable salary, guaranteed vacation days, meals, and sometimes even a gym membership. In a country with a nearly 25% unemployment rate for young people, quitting one’s job should be akin to hara-kiri (at least professionally). So what is driving people to take on the risk of entering the non-job world? Is it craziness or naivete?
So what is driving people to take on the risk of entering the non-job world? Is it craziness or naivete?
A bridge between two worlds
This generation is characterized by the type of person who refrains from using the metro at peak hours in Paris, London, or New York. Why suffer through congestion, they say; life is too short to wallow in mediocrity. Similarly, this generation is malcontent in traditional professional settings. They feel severed from their talents and autonomy in environments where the boss has the last word in everything. Above all, they are sick of being frustrated in their attempts to launch ambitious or innovative projects, which seem to get neither support nor recognition from their employers. Nonetheless, by reading blogs, magazines, or engaging in online conversations via online Twitter or Facebook, they are flooded with ideas for new ventures or projects. They recognize that outside of their comfort zones, major economic changes are underway. Having seen the shape of the new world, they are not content to stay within crumbling old models of work and life. Rather, they seek to join in and help create the businesses of tomorrow.
Activists take me for a businessman, and businessmen consider me an activist
Out of their dreams, they are creating their ambitions, and this is why they are leaving their jobs for the brave new world of entrepreneurship and self-employment. I’ve met with such individuals from all over Europe, as well as some Americans, many of whom are graduates of prestigious universities. This is the “Erasmus generation” – they speak at least three languages, and have worked as consultants, in marketing, or in finance. They’ve traveled, seen the world, and have friends in all the capitals of Europe. Nonetheless, they’ve felt trapped like birds in a cage when it comes to their careers. But they are not anti-business, nor are they idealists. They are pragmatic and full of common sense: rather than boarding sinking ships, they prefer to build lifeboats. “Activists take me for a businessman, and businessmen consider me an activist,” a friend recently told me. In response, I told him that he should consider himself an ambassador. We are building a bridge between old and new forms of work. From these efforts, future opportunities will certainly flow, particularly once a class of companies emerges in which managers are eager to recognize the contributions of a workforce in which stubbornly optimistic, humanist employees fear immobility more than they fear heights. This Op-Ed was originally published in French in issue 9 of Socialter magazine (February 2015), a OuiShare fest partner.