GenY/Millenials are known for a few things: we’re narccisistic, needy… generally we’re viewed as a pain by previous generations. We expect to come into a job with flexible hours, flexible dress code, and flexible means of communication. We expect employers to know that we expect these things as well as expect them to accommodate our list of demands wishes in return for gumption, for idealistic viewpoints, for quality “high up” views on up-to-date topics. Don’t put us in data entry, put us on a brainstorming team!
One thing employers don’t realize is the hidden value having a healthy number of happy Millennials on the payroll; We’re the canary in the coal mine. Once your millennials start abandoning ship, you’d better believe you’ve got rather large issues that need to be addressed.
What I see in my place of employment is this: the attitude that we ought to be thankful we were hired because, at this age, with no job history, we’re lucky we’ve got jobs at all. Needless to say, we have very few GenY folks in our office. The pay scale at my work, at least with my experience, has been not on my merit, but by how long I’ve been in the workforce. When discussing my pay with my boss one day I asked about my pay and was met with the response “Lets see, you’ve been in the job force for… 7 years. You’re doing pretty well for being in the force 7 years”. I wanted to mention that, actually, I’ve only been a member of the job force for 4 years because the other 3 were spent working for my parents and going to school full time… but that wouldn’t help my case, only hurt it.
We also have very few Millennials in the office because we’ve got a GenX-er who is the manager of one of the largest departments. I’ll take a chance here and say it’s no wonder no GenY folks stay around in her department. You can boss around Boomers, you can boss around other GenX employees. Try that crap activity with a GenY employee and you’ll be sorely surprised when your ‘star’ employee leaves for another department or, worse, a better company; You’ll also run off all GenY’s if you try and boss us around with no structure in the workplace too. You’re not our parents. If we wanted to be bossed around by a parental figure, we’d just move back home (if we don’t still live there to start with).
GenY wants equality in the workplace, not ageism. We think in ideal terms that based on skillset and merit one gets a raise, not in terms of how long we’ve been in the job force. GenY wants the same respect we give so if you’re not willing to do that, fine, we’ll lend our value to a company that gives a shit cares enough to stay current in today’s business culture.
So what does it mean when an office has very few of the twenty-somethings? It means you need to change your attitude or you’re going to have a very rough time finding and keeping the rising talent that the Hero generation embodies. We use social media in ways yet discovered so if you treat one of us poorly, you can bet the 531 “friends” we have in our social networks will also know about it. It’s a vicious cycle so be careful… those ‘kids’ you don’t care to compromise with are your future target market and we’re likely to not forget a company that has royally screwed one of our own.
WE are the ones that are going to pull your old business out of the funk you’re in by advocating and implementing social media marketing and we’ll raise sales exponentially with it. We’re expecting you to treat everyone equally… none of this ageist bullshit nonsense about being paid according to our length of stay in the job market. WE are going to be the driving force for educating and training employees which will result in lower turnover. WE are going to be the ones cleaning up your messes so we beg you, be good to us, don’t discredit us because we’re young.
So please, employers, be patient with your GenY employees who are on their twitter cell phones on the workfloor, who come in a few minutes late (but leave a few minutes late also – we have work ethic, just a different one), who asks you over, and over, and over again on when we’re going to start a corporate blog… I plead – Drop the attitude so we can drop ours and help you help yourself.
The last thing you want is a dead canary, right? 
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