MILLENNIALS ARE THE CURRENT REALITY
Millennials are the current reality, representing a real challenge and a lot of opportunities for businesses, employers, and educational and social institutions.
The term ‘Millennials' refers to the generation born between the ‘80s and 2000, and is expected to replace the generation of baby-boomers (born in the ‘60s and‘70s)
Millennials have grown up in a society that is very different than any group before them, influenced by overproduction and abundance on one hand, and economic recession and political tensions on the other. That is why Millennials are having a much harder time achieving financial independence than previous generations.
But is money their ultimate goal?
Let's have a closer look at this social and demographic phenomenon:
The millennial child has had a TV and a computer as his baby-sitters.
The millennial student is an unknown quantity to his teacher.
The millennial worker is a challenge for an employer, because it's a generation of hackers, tinkerers, and shortcut takers. They are real multi-taskers, who expect to have 6-8 careers in their lifetime in different environments.
The millennial consumer, brought up by the “economy of desire” is restless and indicates the potential for the development of new business-models.
The millennial entrepreneur is creative, imaginative, and collaborative.
In this episode let's have a look at Millennials in their workplace:
1. The millennial worker is looking for the best, the most efficient, and the most logical approach. According to Deloitte survey, 6 out of 10 workers aged between 25-35 confirmed that a sense of purpose was a key deciding factor when choosing an employer.
Previous generations, including baby-boomers, have had a strong belief in corporate stability, procedures, and hierarchy: the men in grey suits will decide our future. Millennials, on the other hand, want purposeful and meaningful jobs. They desire to be creative, and to have important, interesting roles, and to have a say in their companies.
This is the reason that many of them would consider changing their job every 1.5 years, and about 22% would consider starting their own business.
2. The millennial workplace is an increasingly collaborative environment. Millennials do a lot of their social activities in groups; they're very comfortable with that. The same pattern is brought into an office.
Companies based on traditional management styles with a rigid hierarchy, departmental bureaucracy, and individual performance assessment may lose sight of the fact that collaboration may get the task done better and smarter than if done by individuals.
3. The collaborative spirit leads to the next trend: According to Harvard Business Review and Pricewaterhouse Coopers, millennial employees want constant managerial feedback, a stream of review and recognition, with a consistent appraisal system or system of merit.
They are not happy with the annual 0.5% salary review and a Christmas dinner with a mediocre manager giving a stale speech about corporate culture, leadership, and the necessity to drive the sales up.
4. Millennials want a manager who is friendly, ethical, and fair and also values transparency and dependability. A pushy manager, wearing a state-of-the-art suit, who relies on input requests and negative feedback as a motivation tool has lost his splendor.
Lisa Orell, the author of “Millennials Incorporated,” says: “If someone doesn't like their boss, they're gonna leave. The other stuff doesn't matter.”
Does this mean that the new generation of employees is looking for families with a friendly and meaningful environment rather than battlefields with financial trophies?
We can't tell exactly, but Deloitte research shows that the appeal of global businesses has dropped to 35% of millennials, and only 28% of them think their current organization is making full use of their skills.
