Is Your Firm Ready for the Millennials?

by Myra A. Thomas

April 22, 2008

Since the Sixties, the news about young people has almost always been bad, with each generation described in turn as more violent, more alienated, and more selfish than the generation that preceded it. But two scholars at Emory University's Goizueta Business School and other demographic experts say that the generation born since 1982 seems to be breaking the mold. The Millennial Generation, as they're now dubbed, are apparently a nicer bunch in many respects than the prior two –  less violent, less alienated, and less selfish. Not only are the kids all right, but some pundits predict that they will go on to become another "Greatest Generation," the World War II era cohort now mostly of sainted memory.

Yet in spite of their many positive qualities, integrating Millennials into today's workplace may not be straightforward, warn Andrea Hershatter, a senior lecturer in organization and management and the associate dean and director of the BBA program at Goizueta, and Molly Epstein, an assistant professor in the practice of management communication. Brimming with self-confidence, Millennials want positive work that offers much more than a chance to earn a living, the professors say. They want attention from their bosses, a workplace with clear rules, and a chance to do work that will offer some benefit to society. Their desires are so different, in fact, and the group is even larger than the Boomers – 80 to 90 million Millennials, according to some estimates – that Epstein says that smart companies are now trying to adjust their recruiting tactics and their work environment to meet the group's very different needs.

Why are they so different? Part of it may be that these young people have been raised very differently than the Generation Xers before them. "The original research comes from William Strauss and Neil Howe," says Hershatter.  One of the issues they have pointed to is major differences in their upbringing. A lot of the things that people perceived as problematic outcomes as the result of how GenXers were raised – latch key kids, lots of autonomy, lots of freedom, not a lot of attention to their care and well being – was completely reversed with the Millennials," says Hershatter.

  Continue reading this article at Knowledge @ Emory.