Parenting, entitlement, meaning, great expectations, the need for speed, social networking, and collaboration are the seven trends that make up ‘millennial generation,’ say Lynne C. Lancaster and David Stillman in ‘The M-Factor’ (www.harpercollins.com).
The leading edge of this generation, born between 1982 and 2000, began showing up in part-time jobs in the late nineties, and will continue being a force to reckon with over the next decade and beyond, the authors note. They find that the ‘Millennials’ – sometimes called Generation Y, GenNext, the Google Generation, the Echo Boom, or even the Tech Generation – compose the fastest-growing segment of workers today.
“Over time the M-Factor will alter the way all of us work, but in the process, it will create collisions and spawn divisions as the generations bump up against each other vying to find the best way of doing things. The outcome will be a negotiated settlement based on what works…”
The uncut cord
The first trend, parenting, is about mom and dad who haven’t cut the cord that binds them with the new generation worker. Which explains why smart organisations are turning parents into allies in the war for talent, as in the following examples: “Ernst & Young now distributes ‘parent packs’ to students during information sessions at college recruitment fairs. Recruiters from General Mills send welcome baskets to parents of new hires filled with nostalgic products.” And ads of General Electric in campus newspapers sport catchy headlines like, ‘Let us take your son or daughter off your payroll and put them on ours.’
Desirable commodity
Entitlement, the second trend, is what makes the Millennials see themselves as a desirable commodity often worthy of special treatment, because they think they can accomplish whatever they want to in life.
But the other generations can be resentful, when for instance “the Millennials have the guts or the gall to ask, ‘If you hire me for this sales job can I have a company car?’” That doesn’t seem like an unreasonable question, unless you are talking to someone who was with the company nine years before he or she got a car, the authors reason.
Their advice to managers, however, is that employees who request more responsibility might not be pushy and greedy; such employees might just be eager. “Workers who keep asking about that next career move aren’t necessarily making waves; they might actually be turned on and wanting to progress.”
Work that has value
Meaning of ‘meaning,’ the third trend, is that the Millennials want to earn a good living while doing work that has value, be it about contributing to a company, country, cause, or community. As the economy expands, the pressure is on for organisations to connect the dots for Millennials as to how their role fits with the larger mission and how they can find meaning in their work from day one, the authors observe.
“Millennials raised to be collaborators with their parents, teachers, and peers are now looking for leaders willing to collaborate with them on creating meaning in what they do. And they don’t just consider meaning work nice to have; they see it as a must have.”
It, therefore, becomes important for companies to make jobs come alive. “Some companies post pictures of current Millennial employees, where you can click on an individual to read about (or see a video on) what they do in their job and what has meaning for them. Other companies post written, video, or photo diaries of an employee’s first year that paint a graphic picture of the employee’s connection to the organisation and the work.”
Not what, but who
Fast-forwarding to ‘social networking,’ the penultimate trend discussed in the book, you learn that you have to go beyond the gadgets to understand the two themes behind the Millennials’ unique communication styles.
First, it is customisation, with a focus on expressing one’s uniqueness. “They’re old pros at designing MySpace pages with their trademark colours or carefully selecting movie quotes to express precisely who they are for their Facebook profile. It is no longer enough to tell people what you’re all about, you now get to show them.”
And, the second theme is technology; it is not about content, it is about connecting, the authors clarify. They recount how, for the older generations, the Web was first and foremost a way to access information, with computers used for processing that information, organising and storing it. Not so with the Millennials, to whom the real magic of the Internet is not about what you could find, but about who you could find; ‘less about locating a destination than about connecting constellations of people…’
Recommended addition to trend-watchers’ shelf.
