Working with millennials
on how to deal with this mercurial bunch— and it seems that you have to be an ego-coddling, emotionally telepathic genius to get them to perform.
- lennials, but rather is a snippet of a commentary describing Gen X in the early 1990s.
Dig deeper and you will see older generations consistently and emphatically belittling their younger counterparts since the beginning of recorded history. Socrates in the 4th century stated that “the children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority, disrespect their elders, and love talking.” Sound familiar?
While generational angst has been more or less the norm since the beginning of time, it is peculiar how companies are failing to adequately integrate millennials into their workforce.
Change is here
only27 percent of managers believe that their young employees are team players and an eyepopping 80 percent of hiring managers claim that their millennial employees display narcissistic tendencies. Yes, we now live in a world where the typical company culture paints an entire generation
- graphics and the demand for companies to change workforce will be coming from this generation by percent of the workforce as millennials.
Whether companies accept it or not, the statistics are clear—adapt or die.
Bean bags are (not) the answer
tepid at best—with companies opting for band-aid
with the accessories of a stereotypical millennial en- vironment— ping pong tables, bean bags, bespoke company apps, fun rooms, etc. but more often than not, these companies simply miss the mark.
they perform their assessments are still suited to an older generation that is now a shrinking minority.
Two sides of the same coin
It is ironic that some of the complaints that people have against millennials are the same qualities that can be their strengths when they are fully engaged in their work.
group demanded greater participation. Instead of shrugging them off as having an entitled me-meme attitude, we created a comprehensive survey improve on the status quo provided us the data we needed to dramatically enhance our employee prestigious industry group as a result.
too hard to do, they said. Instead of labelling them that it had a disproportionately high administrative burden and gave little feedback for the employees to act upon. We are now looking at replacing it wholesale with a system that provides concise, timely, and
Granted, neither of these initiatives, taken singly, will be able to create the perfect millennial workplace. But what it does show is what the millennial generation is capable of, if only we are able to get over our biases and get them involved.