So I was recently involved in a pretty entertaining discussion regarding the different challenges and dynamics involved with managing and leading groups of employees of differing generational groups. Of course we covered what the characteristics were of each group: Gen Y'ers .. (they couldn't think of a cooler name for these crazy kids... oh yeah, that's right they've had like five.. Generation Next, MTV Generation, "The Echo Boomers"...a play on Baby Boomer's, The Millennials, The Net Generation, and finally .. The Boomerang Generation...so that's like six actually), possess an innate ability to ... not move out of their parents houses, blend in quietly and stop using electronic media for 10 seconds to reach out and communicate about ...everything. My humorous take on Gen Y aside, this unique generation born (1977 - 1999/2000 depending on your source), in a time of revolutionary technology explosion carried on the back of the Internet has some great qualities as well: a pesky need to abandon petty cultural, religious and societal difference and are generally more accepting and tolerant then their predecessors... to be commended for sure. I focus mainly on this group from a management perspective because, well, the following generation generally are only working in Third World sweatshops ... so I'm assuming motivation is generally based on the bottom of Maslow's pyramid of needs. These lively youths born to follow the ingeniously named "Generation Y", are simply called Gen Z.
Gen Z is composed of ...uhhm well ... very little yet? Most have yet to reach 18 based on the clearly defined line of generational demarcation. That's why I'm going to focus on "The Next Generation"...of employees.
A recent poll performed by a founding director of MIT's largest internship discovered some interesting trends amongst those Gen Y's being recruited into the work place... they sought above all.. freedom .. freedom to be unsure of what they want to do.. see I told you they wanted to be special.. Gen Y'ers want their work to be meaningful, they want a sense of responsibility, to be engaged and challenged and a clear path towards choice... they will not accept pigeonholing. This brings me to the interesting discussion I had with a classmate regarding what I cavalierly construed was Gen Y's inability to focus, concentrate and be at peace with their life because of the constant barrage of technology presented to them from birth. I spoke of my observation of parents plopping children in front of TV's at a young age. More recently I've seen parents carrying a Radio Shack assortment of portable TV's, DVD players and gaming consoles into restaraunts and malls - technology babysitters as it were. Additionally, the enormous amount of programming and devices marketed to children in the last two decades has been astounding - can't understand why people wonder what's going on with the fitness level of our children. Obvioulsy this is no way a scientific study or analysis - rather my personal musings and frustration when I encounter these brilliant, jittery and uncomfortable in a four hour meeting youngsters from Gen Y in the workplace.
Back to the class discussion; this young lady astutely pointed out (now I think it was astute, before I just thought she was wrong...j/k), that when I say the Gen Y'ers have some environmentally conditioned ADD, maybe I should consider the possibility that they have simply not been challenged enough. This generation can multi-task like nobodies business (offspring of intensively colorful and challenging video games... perhaps) and that simple tasks in the early phases of their work experience bore them... they feel like they can contribute so much more and have talents that need matching to current organizational problems - one of the points of the above referenced article was that "The Millenials" need coaching and open-ended mentoring that allows some unlimited problem solving with limited decision making... this is what the new crop of employees are seeking to satiate their expanding minds. This was their number one reason for choosing a particular position over another not, apparently as HR groups thought, flexible-hours, Starbucks Wednesdays and corporate gym's with free weekly massages (actually I would choose this above all but, of course, I'm a Gen-Xer). Sooo dear classmate, I stand slightly corrected as the evidence proves...
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I do think that a lack of challenge and meaning can contribute to frustrated Gen Yers in the workplace today. Certainly, my friends have struggled and are still struggling to find what it is they're "supposed" to do... what fulfills them. A good friend of mine has been struggling between two ideas - doing something she loves that fulfills her, or doing something that is "good enough" so she can do what she loves in her free time. (I've brought up the point that if you do what you are passionate about for a living, it's very difficult to fit in anything else. Your job can easily become your life.)
ReplyDeleteThat said, no two Gen Yers (or people, for that matter) are alike... sometimes people flounder and struggle because they really are lazy or narcissistic, or they feel entitled to things before they've earned them, and sometimes they struggle because they want more challenge and mentorship from their job than their employers realize. Understanding the difference may be a challenge that employers face more and more as Gen Y continues to move into the workplace.