Why Are We Still Talking About the 'Millennial Problem' in the Workforce?
Millennials have been in the workforce for two decades, but we're still talking about how difficult they are to manage.
![Millennials at work Millennials at work](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blt3cef6fdfd477e005/6525fdd437a1655fe519bc7a/Millennials-at-work-2018.jpg?width=1280&auto=webp&quality=95&format=jpg&disable=upscale)
For years, employers have been griping about the difficulty of managing millennials. As the first truly digital generation, sometimes they seem like visitors from a foreign land to older generations. In school, they learn coding over cursive. Their social lives take place at least as much online as IRL (that’s “in real life” to us old folks). There’s an app for nearly every desire they could have. For seasoned leaders who have managed millennials and previous generations, the contrast in values and culture can be difficult to swallow.
But is there really a “millennial problem”?
Baby boomers are probably the last generation that entered the workforce with the conviction that the road to the American Dream started with finding a nice entry level job at a good company and ended with retiring from the same company with a management title and a nice pension. They raised their kids – Generation X – to believe in those same tenets. If you work hard, good things will come.
All you have to do is scroll through your LinkedIn feed for about three seconds, and you’ll see plenty of the usual complaints about Gen Y: They’re entitled. They need constant feedback and praise. They complain about having to actually come into the office instead of work from home. They switch jobs too often. In the end, they’re all saying the same thing: Millennials lack a work ethic.
“If you look at older generations, some of us were motivated by the fact that [we] had to graduate college, had to get that job, had to move up the ladder,” says Choo Kim-Isgitt, CMO at security solutions provider EdgeWave. “There was a very specific track that we were on, regardless of occupation.”
The first millennials, born in 1980, are 38 right now and well into their careers. Millennials are also the largest generational demographic in the workforce. By and large, most employers have resigned themselves to having to cater to the millennial culture. Their technical savvy is too valuable to dismiss easily. They also still make up the vast majority of entry-level and junior positions, which in many cases require an investment in training from employers; having a revolving door of low level staff members can get expensive quickly.
Like it or not, managers have to learn how to “handle” these digital native employees. In a lot of cases, employers take cues from company cultures exhibited by places like Google or Facebook, organizations that have become synonymous with the ideal millennial workplace.
“We changed the colors on our walls, and everybody gets a Nerf gun when they start the job,” says Nathan Hable, NOC manager at IT solutions provider BlueRock Technologies. “On our job descriptions, we ask for a cover letter and your best joke. Our hiring and attracting has been successful.”
But what millennials look for in a company goes further than fun and whimsy, especially with those still in their 20s. They’re demanding more from employers than these surface level concerns.
“During a career fair, questions will be: How does the company give back to the community? What are the green initiatives? What is their carbon footprint? Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have had those questions,” explains Jude Reser, SHRM-SCP and SPHR, market director of human resources for Marriott International.
Reser says that recruiting for the younger generation is more about the common good and making the world a better place. It’s more than just individual interest. Millennials need to be part of something bigger, and they gravitate toward company cultures that provide that to them. For a lot of employers — especially SMBs that may not have the resources to devote to creating and maintaining a corporate responsibility program–it’s a demand they’re not sure what to do with.