Oct 6, 2010

Where did the Boomers Go?

The new terminology for those born between 1982 and 2000 is "Echo Boomers".  They are also known as Millennials and Generation Y.  This generation has different priorities, expectations, attitudes, and work styles.



Millennials:

  • Prefer to work on collaborative teams, and expect to be heard
  • Are very close to their parents
  • Expect to start at the top (unreasonable?)
  • Expect their careers to have meaning
  • Have great expectations but little experience (unreasonable?)
  • Move fast
  • Social Networks are their natural habitat
Ignore these items at your peril.  So how do you deal with Millennials?  Give jobs that will help them build responsibility, provide opportunities for learned growth so they can progress, emphasize how your company endeavors to improve the region/world, compile list of questions to help them reason out the proper course of action, explain why the slower approach to a situation may be beneficial, emphasize the potential consequences of having personal information on social networks, solicit their opinions before making a decision - and explain your decision after it is made.

Pretty basic things to me, but a paradigm shift the Millennials.

4 comments:

  1. Pretty basic, true. But I see the two preceding generations (the 'boomers' and the 'greatest') as being mostly heirarchies whereas the subsequent generations have an egalitarianism to them...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Boomers are cranky old complainers who hate change. Millennials may have an unrealistic sense of entitlement, but Id rather work with them then boomers.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think that I can understand the Millennials if I were to live with my parents, lets say for ever.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Do they have a name for the generation born since 1990? Just curious.

    ReplyDelete

Tell Me What You Think, Don't Make me go Rogue on you :o)