Generation Y Gives New Meaning to Work

At the moment, there’s about 78million men and women who proudly represent the millennial generation in the US, and they are taking up their places in the various facets of the workforce. Just as this is happening there’s a switch in gear, there’s now a difference in how people work, when they work and what they work for. Between 2002 and 2010, there’s going to be a drop of almost 33% in number of workers aged 38 and above. As this starts to happen, the scale will start tipping and Gen Y-ers will suddenly become more prominent in the work force, causing a huge generational baton-exchange in the workforce.

Gen Y has a completely different idea and approach to work than the baby boomers. They don’t live to work, they work to live. They have watched in horror and shock as their parents, uncles, mentors e.t.c. worked punishing hours to make money…money they rarely had time to spend. They’ve graduated college with this idea that they would not suffer the same fate as the previous generation and hence have become more demanding. More demanding in how much they ask to be paid, more demanding in the way they want to work, how flexible their hours are and so forth. They have come in with the idea that a fine balance must be struck between their work life and personal life.

Some months back I had coffee with some seniors at my Alma Mater, UMBC. The discussion swiftly shifted to what they planned to do after they graduated college. “I can’t stand all this 8 – 5 people get sucked into” started Megan, a Finance and Mathematics major who already had an offer from a big firm in downtown Baltimore. ” I have spoken to some of the employees there and I just think they are treated so poorly. The idea of working 9 hours a day, with overtime every now and then just doesn’t appeal to me. I want to have a life! I want to have flexible hours and be able to go to concerts, watch my favorite tv shows at 7pm. How can I do that when I get off at 5:30-6p.m, sit in traffic for about and hour or two and wake up 7a.m. the next day to do it all over again?” In reality, Megan is not alone. Research has shown that more and more Gen Y-ers will quit their job if it wasn’t fun enough or if the salary doesn’t meet their standard. The idea of dealing with mediocrity is not one the millennial generation like, they will not settle for anything they don’t deem worthy.

Are these demands being accommodated by companies? You better believe they are! Why wouldn’t they? Have they got an option? Most companies infact will do anything and go any length to lure the very best graduates. Madalyn Brooks is an HR at Procter and Gamble. I once heard her stress the difference between the interview sessions she had some years back to those she sits in on now. She explained that most young job seekers now care about how many days off they will get, if they can work from home, if they have at least a 3 month sabbatical and so on.

The issue of money and benefits also comes up. Most Gen Y-ers are asking for a lot more than the baby boomers did for the same position. They are asking for several other perks as well. It’s not unusual these days to see companies luring graduates by offering them a company paid BlackBerry phone, an ipod touch, a macbook amongst other things. Why is there this sudden demand for more money and perks? For one, the cost of going to college has blown up off the hinges leaving several graduates in debt. You can’t expect them not to ask for more money when you require them to have a Masters degree or MBA(for better chance of landing the job). How do you think they paid to attain this level of education? There was a CNN documentary some weeks back when a recent grad expressed his desire to be started on $70k a year in an industry where the average salary was $50k last year. His argument is that most companies won’t look your way if you don’t have internship experience(s) under your belt. He explained that he worked terribly hard to get those internships and while he doesn’t expect an official car or a macbook, he expected to be atleast “compensated for the hard work he put into preparing for the position.”

The improvement in technology has a lot to do with this change in my opinion. When young graduates see Gen Y entrepreneurs like the creators of Facebook, Myspace, Youtube and other web 2.0 companies, they have this belief that they really don’t have to give up their life in a boring 10hr a day job in order to be successful. The fact that social media is now also a basis for many companies reaching more customers has also been responsible for how Gen Y has chosen to work. Most companies now encourage their employees to try to harness the power of social media for the good of the company, and who better to go to than Gen Y-ers?