What Do Millennials Bring To The Workplace?

Millennials have been labeled as “lazy brats” who know nothing about politics and money, and fail to bring anything to the workplace.

As a millennial, I obviously beg to differ. However, One of the biggest challenges for businesses today is integrating the Millennials or Gen Y twenty-somethings into a Baby Boomer culture. We are the newest generation to enter the labor market, and from what I’ve heard, we have exceedingly different expectations from our careers than our predecessors.

However, we are the future leaders and the next generation of revenue-generators, so it only makes sense for older generations to actively consider our needs and wants in the labour force so that they can capitalize on implementing workplace quantifiers in the hopes of improving labour force efficiency.

For a brief background, as explained by Canadianbusiness.com, the Millennial Generation was born between 1977 and 1998. They are 75 million strong in size and were raised by “helicopter parents,” who doted on them, giving them an ample supply of attention and validation.

Because they were heralded with high expectations, Millennials tend to display an abundance of self-confidence and believe they are highly valuable to any organization from day one. They are extremely focused on developing themselves and thrive on learning new job skills, always setting new challenges to achieve. They are also the “can do” generation, never worrying about failure, for they see themselves as running the world and work environments.

Unlike other generations, the Millennials have been described as being overly connected to their parents. As they move through their twenties, they still speak to their parents frequently and turn to their parents for personal and career advice. Some are still even living at home, not uncomfortable with the arrangement. Organizations must remember the parent involvement factor when dealing with this group. These parents are still micro-managing their children’s careers and personal lives.

When it comes to work life balance, Gen Y is not willing to give up their lifestyle for a career. They have traveled extensively and value having flexibility in their daily lives. They choose careers that allow them to live the life they desire, busy with after-work activities, including philanthropic involvement. Multitasking is their way of life.

As explained by businessknowhow.com, this generation grew up with little unstructured time as their parents carefully selected their life choices. The result of their minimal “down time” is that they are highly comfortable going from activity to activity in their adult world. When their workday ends, Millennials charge out into gyms, volunteer positions, classes and social events.

Millennials are team-oriented, banding together to socialize in groups. In school, this generation was taught lessons using a cooperative learning style. Therefore, they feel comfortable working on teams and want to make friends with the people at work. They believe that a team can accomplish more and create a better end result.

This is a crucial point to understand when employing millennials; we enjoy teamwork, and we can accomplish more in a team than on our own. With managerial roles in the workplace shifting from centralized platforms to much more decentralized, power-inclusive platforms, the implementation of team-oriented projects and workplaces is arguably one of the smartest decisions a business can make in today’s workplace.