This is a question that we get asked time and time again. Our Gen Y research tells us that there are some clear and distinguishing characteristics which are mainly to do with the fact that Gen Y are much more driven by self development and growth eg opportunities to be mentored, doing work that plays to their strengths. Whereas Gen X were/are much more concerned with security-based motivators ie secure job, salary, status, career ladder.

However it is also true that Gen Y is demanding from work things that Gen X would have quite liked too but we were not bold enough to demand.

I like this blog post from Ryan Healy. He is talking about the USA but what he says is applicable elsewhere. He says that Gen Y have the opportunity to make the workplace better for all of us for these three reasons:

Y Has Better Demographics

Generation X was simply too small to force any kind of change. There are about 50 million Gen Xers in the United States compared to nearly 76 million baby boomers and 77 million Millennials. When Gen Xers graduated college, the jobs were not there. With only 50 million people to fill the positions, and plenty of boomers around to fill the middle management jobs, companies had their pick of candidates. Employers took advantage by hiring only the top candidates and paying them as little as possible.

Generation Y is 50% bigger than Generation X, and with Xers dropping out of the workforce to take care of their children, employees, not management, have the power and even a recession won’t slow down the job market. Generation Y has the same confidence, the same ambition and the same savviness as Generation X had in their twenties, but the demographics are in Gen Y’s favor. Y can ask for change and actually get it.

Y Has Better Technology

Generation X came of age when the internet was just coming into common, public use. There were great new technologies and plenty of opportunities to strike it rich in Silicon Valley, much like there are today. But the 90s were still a time of traditional media and marketing to the masses. So if you wanted to make your voice heard, you had to pay thousands for a TV commercial or somehow become a celebrity. Today, anyone with a bad job can start a blog and tell the world why work should be better. Plus, where there was no easy way to create a collective Gen X voice, the Web is now all about community. And Generation Y embraces the idea of community like no other generation.

Y Has Better Teamwork

Generation Y is the ultimate “team” generation. Despite what the media says, it’s not about us versus the rest of you. It’s about how can we all work together? How can we all be happy?

We’re not competing now and we never were competing with the Baby Boomers. We’re the entry level grunts and they’re the big shots in the corner office. We don’t threaten their jobs and they don’t make us work long hours because we don’t report to them. But Gen X hated, and still hates, the Boomers. It makes sense. The baby boomers were directly managing the Gen Xers, and because of the demographics I pointed out above, the Gen Xers had to work the long hours or risk being fired and (easily) replaced.

Ryan is right. Unfortunately, some employers are still thinking of Gen Y as a problem/risk/challenge. Wrong. Gen Y presents a fantastic opportunity for positive change in the workplace: they are great collaborators, they are prepared to challenge the status quo, they have passion and they won’t put up with some of the nonsense that people like me (I confess I did!) did when I started out.

Sally

Simon and I were at Roffey Park on Friday presenting our Gen Y research at all an all-day event.   Our very own Lamorna was part of a Gen Y panel - five twenty-somethings talking about their views of work and answering questions. I already knew how inspiring Lamorna is. She is 22 years old,  well-travelled, interesting. She co-founded a fabulous company that won last year’s Shell Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

The other 4 were equally inspiring. It struck me how confident, self-assured and entrepreneurial they all were. It was interesting to hear the audiences questions which were nearly all indicative of what a struggle it is for Boomers and Xers to understand the world of Gen Y. Questions like "how come you are so confident?", "don’t you ever feel insecure?".

I for one felt pretty envious. Oh to be 26, to have already worked in 6 countries, to have been head of social policy for a think tank and decided to leave all that and become a freelance speechwriter (for some well-known and incredible people) and to be writing a book. Wow.

This was clearly a very special group of people but I am willing to bet that the  confident, fearless, or, as they put it, we "don’t see barriers" mentality is common amongst Gen Ys. The big challenge is for organisations to find a way of harnessing that instead of stifling it and driving them away.

Sally Bibb

FreshMinds, the research company, have just released some research into different generations attitudes in the workplace. It makes for interesting reading and stimulates managers to think about how appropriate the workplaces of today are for the mix of generations in them.

We would counsel a bit of caution though. We advocate that generation is an attitude not an age and with any research it’s important to remember the individual not the stereotype of the group.  With a norm group of only 1000 respondents it would be dangerous to generalise across Boomers/Xers/Ys.

Our own generational research “ tellithowitis” gathers data on attitudes of more than 3200  Gen Ys and we are still very careful not to generalise across all Gen Y. They are not all the same, and companies that make changes in their people practices on that basis would be mistaken. Sure normal distribution rules apply, but some of our clients called us in precisely because they came a cropper by putting all Gen Ys in the same box. One company (a bank) made the assumption that Gen Ys are really into Corporate Social Responsibility, and so organised a volunteering day for all their graduate employees. It bombed. Their feedback was that they would rather have given money. Whoops. They realised that not all Gen Y are the same and they should really have done a bit more homework before stereotypes.

See the Management Today article here.  Stefan Stern, the author, declares himself an "anxious X-er". This raises a question for all journalists out there: "To what extent are you still appealing to your readers?  They are getting younger and they have some very different ways of seeing the world."

Sally Bibb