BUSINESS WATCH:Gen Y is driven but restless

With Generation Y establishing itself in the workforce, there are new challenges that employers must face when hiring the 18- to 29-year-olds.

But those challenges can also translate into positives for the hiring company as the new breed of professionals brings with them a heightened awareness of technology and education, local business leaders said.

First the bad news: Gen Y workers are more focused on themselves and less likely to stick with a company for long periods of time.

“They are not the traditional long-term thinkers — there’s not a lot of loyalty there to employers,” Fisher and Phillips employment attorney Chris Boman of Newport Beach said. “They are very likely to pick up and move on.”

That mobility stems from the generation as a whole being “very smart, very motivated, very driven and very technologically savvy,” Boman said.

That being said, those attributes are attractive to many employers, including the Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce.

“This whole business about technology and the use of software and technological equipment that’s necessary in business today — these people seem to have a pretty good grasp on it…. Secondly, they are a source of unbridled enthusiasm as well as creative ideas,” chamber President Richard Luehrs said. “So I think they’re not encumbered by, ‘Oh well, we always did it that way, so we can’t come out of the box.’ No, they come in with some fresh new ideas and I think that helps in business.”

But the conventional wisdom that it’s only the younger generation that doesn’t stick around with a company for decades isn’t necessarily the case, Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce President Ed Fawcett said.

“Yes, the loyalty factor is diminished, but that’s been increasingly so for more than just a couple generations…. You can look back over the last five generations and see that trend has been occurring,” Fawcett said.

But the notion remains the same — 18- to 29-year-olds are ready to jump ship at any notion of a better opportunity, including opening their own businesses, which could endanger their former employer’s trade secrets, client lists and other confidential information.

Many companies in California hire “at-will” employees, meaning the employer or employee can leave at any time for no reason, so long as it’s not illegal. For long-term employees, Boman suggested no longer having at-will contracts, but to think about contracts that specify an amount of time to stay at the company.

“Move on to an employee-contract agreement with more specific terms,” Boman said.

These terms should also include requiring an exit interview, at which time the employer can make sure to get back all sensitive data, including taking back laptops, cell phones and other things provided to the employee.

“With today’s tech-savvy workforce, laptops, blackberries, cell phones, memory sticks, zip drives — all need to be collected,” Boman said. “They all potentially have trade secrets and private information on them.”

It should also include confidentiality and trade secret agreements. The contract can also prevent the employee from working for another company should they breach the length of the contract.

“You can’t force them to work, but you can force them not to work for somebody else,” Boman said.