Federal prisons. Thats live tuesday at 10 00 eastern here on c span 3. Millennials and their role in todays economy was the topic of a republican policy meeting on capitol hill. The task force is chaired by Elise Stefanik who at the age of 31 is the youngest member of congress. This is about an hour and 15 minutes. The House Republican policy meeting task force on millennials will now come to order. The committee is meeting today to discuss the essential role of mill epials in todays economy. And though were meeting on that important topic, couldnt start todays hearing without mentioning that our hearts and minds are with the people of paris today as they deal with the horrible tragedy over the weekend. We want them to know that we hurt as they hurt. And we all understand together that we have to be united in standing up to these terrorist thugs threatening our waive rife and ultimately douefeating them. I will recognize myself for an opening statement. I want to thank everyone for coming today. Its an exciting day as we host the second Millennial Task force to discuss how the millennial generation is shaping our economy. Today millennials are the largest generation in the workforce, and by 2020, just five years from now, they will represent 50 of it. Now think about that for a second. In just five short years, millennials will make up half of the american workforce. Thats exciting througnews, but also creates a number of challenges. The writing is already on the wall for many p millennials. Student loan debt has risen]iui 1. 2 million. Increasing over 50 . Wages have stagnated. Young people are being poursed to live at home longer. And the president S Health Care law has shifted the cost from the old to the young. Millennials arent asking us to give them a prepass. Theyre just asking us to give them a fair shot. And weve got a long way to go. But the good news is that even though government pea hamay hav helped create this mess, it can also help fix it. As Ronald Reagan said, there are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We just have to have the courage to do what we know is morally right. The first praise lace we can st getting out of the ways of businesses that are fighting to give millennials a chance. There are companies that are rewriting the rule book. These businesses have taken an uncommon approach to fixing common problems, and by doing so, they have truly changed the world. For instance, when was the last time that you opened an encyclopedia or had to walk miles to find a cab . These businesses are changing the way our economy works, and for the future of the millennial generation, we can no longer allow government to get in if the way. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, the youngest woman ever elected to congress has been a tireless advocate in the halls of congress for millennials, and we are pleased to have her leading this task force today. For those of you in the audience or watching online who pea have questions for our witnesses, you can tweet your question using the , gopfuture. And we may ask your question, time permitting, during this hearing. I now recognize the gentle lady from new york, the chair of the policy committees Millennial Task force, congresswoman stefanik. Thank you chairman messer, and i would like to take the opportunity to thank our distinguished panel of witnesses for taking the time to testify and share your knowledge and expertise with us. It is a distinct honor to chair the task force and lead todays hearing as we continue our discussion on how i would as legislators can greatly empower the millennial generation. Id like to take the opportunity to revisit our previous hearings. This is the third in an ongoing series where we have explored and discussed the millennial generation. In june we held our first hearing and we had the Manhattan Institute laying out the demographic break down of americans between the ages of 1834. We reviewed Current Trends and polling data that showed this generation is different in many ways from their parents and grand parents. For example, millennials are the most highly educated generation in american history, yet they also feel the most politically disengaged. In august i held a field hearing in my distribute where i heard from millennial constituents representing a diverse set of backgrounds, they shared real world examples facing a john racial that will soon comprise half of the american workforce, problems such as regulatory issues that hold back farmers. Things that prevent the next Small Business from opening and a government that is slow to adapt have left these Young Americans feeling stifled. As we come together once again we have the privilege of hearing from Industry Leaders who represent the cutting edge of fresh thinking and adaptive policies when it comes to the modern workplace and economy. We will hear how companies are attracting and retaping millennials to their workforces and gain a better understanding how technology is empowering our constituents to support themselves and giving them the flexibility they desire. Millennials have now surpassed generation xors as the largest generation in the labor pours. One in three American Workers today is a millennial, and this percentage will rapidly increase in the coming years. For companies to stay competitive, they will need to be able to harness the talents, experiences and energy of a generation that currently includes 80 million americans. With this new generation, as with all generations come new ways of doing things and fresh outlooks on the world around us. Past generations have looked for stability and certainty, whereas millennials look for flexibility and fulfillment. I brief these shifts will make the United States stronger and more competitive. I look forward to a pro ducktive dialog. Other members of the task force may be recognized in the future when they come in to share statements, but i will move on to introducing the witnesses. I will start with maisie clark who is a Government Affairs analyst at google, working on their advocacy efforts on a wide range of technologies. She has worked at google since 2010 in the people operations, sales and Governmental Affairs divisions. Prior to google, she worked at kiva. Org. She graduated from Harvard College in 2009 with a degree in history. Terry mcclemens is the washington metro managing partner for Price Waterhouse cooper. She leads a practice comprised of over 4,000 professionals serving public, private and government clients and is responsible for all Client Services in the washington metro area. She previously served as oust Human Capital leader and global tal. Leader. During her tenure as oust Human Capital leader, her strategies were recognized and she was recognized by the womens Business Journal as one of the most powerful people in the greater dc. Area. She was also recognized by the National Council for research on women as a trail blazer. One of those who contributed to significant change in the lives of women and girls. Our last is the policy leader for uber. He is responsible for advocating ubers progrowth, marketdriven Business Model to all stakeholders and interested parties. Prior to uber, he served for kevin mccarthy. In this role, he was responsible for coordinating outreach to key organizations that were interested in legislation being considered by the u. S. House of representatives of brian began his career in washington, working for congressman dave hobson and served as a political appointee at the u. S. Small Business Administration and as a Vice President of affairs for independent electrical contractors. He is a graduate and lives in arlington, virginia. The chair recognizes maisie clark for five minutes for an opening statement. Hello. Im going to start over. Thanks. Hi, everyone. My name is maze eye clark with google. Its an honor and pleasure to be here with yall today. I worked at google in a variety of different roles in the past five and a half years. As you poe, the recession has disproportionately affected millennials. I graduated from Harvard College in 2009 at the height of the recession and i did not have a job lined up on graduation day. I took an unpaid internship for five months as i searched for aen gaua engaging and salaried position. Recruiting wasnt exactly the career path i imagined i would pursue when i was in college, but i really mighted needed to money and move out of my parents house. I couldnt ask for a more rigorous and engaging experience. This is because of the way google focuses on its people. It positions itself in many ways to hire and retain millennials, but four themes unite them all. A culture of flexibility, trust in our employees and a constant pursuit to have an inclusive workplace. Countless surveys about what motivates millennials, including deloittes 2015 Millennial Survey show that a mission they believe in is the most important factor for millennials. Googles mission is to organize information. Our mission is distinctive in its simplicity and scope. Many focus on Customer Experience and improved operations and shareholder value, google is focussed on purpose rather than business goal. Mill epials also care a great deal about having flexibility in their careers, both in their day to day work but also in their career trajectories. Work hours at google are flexible. And as long as you get your work done the company is happy. We also allow 20 projects where they can spend 20 of their time working on projects which they think can benefit the company or delight customers. Gmail launched in 2004 and is now one of googles most beloved products. Google always encourages us to keep learning. Googlers can receive an Educational Reimbursement for courses they take outside of work. If a Software Engineer wants to take a course in medieval literature, google will pay for one third of the cost of that course. If its like learning a new code language, google will pay for twothirds of the cost. They offer yearlong rotations to experience what its like to work in another department or another part of the world. My colleague is in south africa and is gaining meaningful experience and cultural exposure as a result of it. Trust in our employees is also an enormous cultural pillar at google. The code base, which contains all the source code that make our products work is almost 100 available to newlyhired engineers on their first day of work. By trusting our employees with confidential information we are treating all people including millennials like the valued, mature people they are. They hold a company wide meeting where they take questions from any employee about products, leadership decisions and the direction of the company. It allows each employee to make his or her voice heard and have access to the top of the company who are making important decisions for the business. This creates a meaningful connection that has a positive motivation for their loyalty to the company. They place an emphasis on bringing our whole selves to work and respect the differences of others. Our lack of dress code is a large appeal but it goes far beyond that. Google has invested a great deal of resources of combating unconscious bias, which is the capacity to give preference to others. They work to brake down the bias to make sure were assessing in the most objective way possible. We also have a number of employee resource and advocacy groups. Mission, transparency, trust and inclusion have paved the way for google to be considered a top employer by mill epials, and we strife each day to retain this incredibly talented john racial of technologists. Thank you, ms. Clark. The chair now recognizes mrs. Mcclemens for an opening statement. Thank you, congress stefanik, congressman messer and other distinguished members of the congress for inviting us to talk to the task force hearing. We are delighted to share some of the Innovative Strategies weve implemented to talent attraction, development and retention of a group of people often misunderstood, millennials. Our workforce is streakingly young. By next year, mill epials will account for approximately 80 of our peep. So the issue of how we attract, engage and develop the youngest members of our organization is something weve spent a lot of time thinking about. They are often stereotyped as being selfabsorbed, lauzy or quick to shift loyalties. Weve found that to be unfounded. And when we started paying attention to the Millennial Workforce motivations and interests, we ended up with a fresh perspective on the Work Experience for our entire firm of in 2012, pdbc collaborated with researchers from Southern California and rlondon business school, what motivates them and how to keep them engaged. What we found were real generational differences among older and younger hires. One of the main take aways from our study was understanding how much millennials and even our experienced people valued flexibility in their schedules and their careers. In many cases, millennials are willing to give up the opportunity to make more money or climb the corporate ladder to find a role that offers them the flexibility to work from home or time to follow their passions. We use this information to rethink what kinds of flexibility we are offering all of our people. In january 2013, we launched a contest, which we called plan to flex, where we asked our managers to work with their teams to find a way to achieve flexibility by supporting each other during one of the busiest times in our Business Cycle january through march. The goal was to focus on clients and have time for things that matter to the individual. We had more than half of our people participating. In early 2014, we took it one step further and rolled out yearround flexibility for the entierp organization. Were finding more unique ways to offer flexibility and balance. We recently launched our flexibility scare tquare talent network. Weve had professionals enroll in medical school during most of the year and come back to us for the busy season. Another professional started their passion and started a bakery. Millennials are also reminding us about how to engage in communication. Its a myth that younger people only want to communicate through electronics. This insight pushed us to take a fresh look at our Performance Management practices, which, at the time, were largely paperdriven, process driven, back ended and often focussed on assignment of compensation as opposed to career development. In 2014, we replaced our old process with a new Leadership Development experience, grounded by our pdbc framework which emphasizes the competencies necessary to solve important problems in an everincreasingly complex world. We are creating a real Time Development culture, emphasizing frequent, informal, in the moment feedback to help our people every day. We developed an app that charts progress to facilitate morrow bust career conversations. Millennials also want to know that theyre valued and appreciated for the contributions theyre making. It can come in the form of real time rewards or for finishing a project. It can also be expressed more subtly in the way we talk with each other and express appreciation. Have you use just one of your seconds to say thank you . Thats appreciation. It takes about a second, but the value of giving that feedback can be impactful and longer lasting. It used to be that the promise of one day becoming a partner of pbdc was the reward for slogging away at the office to matter of the other demands one may have outside of the work. But today, pbdcs goals honor purpose, our reason for being, our millennials take that purpose to heart. Theyre even willing to leave if what were doing as an organization doesnt align with their core values. Weve invested time in teaching people about our purpose, how we build trust in society and solve important problems. We have spent time looking at pdbcs commitment to social issues and sew sigh tal trends to make an impact. Weve taken an active role to promote literacy and support the needs of our veterans and be involved in our own communities to take time away to engage in something meaningful to them. This issue of purpose and meaning has led to one of ou newest projects. Wife looked at the recent debt, there are currently 1. 3 trillion in outstanding loan debt in this country. Most of that debt is owed by millennials. We saw this as a sew sigh tal issue that we could have impact on by helping employees at pwdb. Some in our firm will be able to receive 7600 over six years to repay student loans. In closing, one of the biggest Lessons Learned is to embrace the opportunity to learn from anyone offering a fresh perspective. Our research into millennials has breathed new life into a number of policies. We are not afraid of millennials. Of a and were getting results with higher overall Employee Satisfaction and retention rates. Lastly, i would add that our job is never done. We need to constantly think about its rating our talent practices. Thank you for having me today. Id be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, mrs. Mcclements. I appreciate your giving me an opportunity to be here today. I want to talk about this a little differently if i can. I dont want to talk about uber does for fulltime employees like me, because its just as good as what youve heard so i dont get fired its better than what youve heard from the other two companies. Weve heard a lot about flexibility and what a value