Accommodating Gen Y

As generations go by, our predecessors assume we are skipping out on important aspects of life just to get a few extra minutes on our devices. In Catherine Rampell’s “A Generation of Slackers? Not So Much”, it is said the older generations believe Generation Y is “coddled, disrespectful, narcissistic, and impatient” (Rampell 388). In all reality our generation is just doing what it has to in order to thrive in the world we live in, where technology is one of the largest parts of our everyday lives. If the older generations that criticize Generation Y had grown up in Generation Y they would realize the world we live in requires the use of technology. The advancement of society with technology has shaped Generation Y to be the people that they are, relying on technology; however, older generations believe Generation Y is lazy.

Every generation is influenced by its period 's economic, political and social events. From the Great Depression to the civil rights and women 's movements to the advent of television and advanced computer technologies. Thus generational background/situation may also affect the way they work. The key is to be able to effectively address and take advantage of the differences in values and expectations of each generation in the workplace. The current work place consists of four different generations; The Baby Boomers (1946-1964) who are slowly retiring and existing the workforce, The Generation X (1965-1976), The Generation Y or millennia (1977-1997), and the Generation Z who are about to or are just entering the work force. Although these different generations tend to want similar things in a workplace their environment/background has shaped their character, values, and expectations (Hahn 2011).

“After a century of trying to control people, processes and information, we have come to a point in organizational history where we need to recognize that what worked before just simply isn’t enough anymore.” This goes to prove that over time just like everything else evolves our behaviors towards our colleagues has to evolve as well. And management has to learn the new behaviors of his/her employees. The Millennials and generation Z needs to know that they are appreciated and need to be challenged before they get bored, hence the reason why managers need to learn

Baby Boomers constructed America in the 1960s, and soon the Millennials will get their chance. Baby boomers are currently the largest generation of active workers. Research has shown that boomers identify their strengths as organizational memory, optimism, and their willingness to work long hours. Many earned, many still earn high incomes. The millennial generation, born between 1980 and 2000, are starting to enter businesses in large numbers. However, they do not have the same views and values when working compared to the Boomers. This Boomers grew up in organizations with large corporate hierarchies, and Millennials grew up with management structures and teamwork based job roles. By 2025, millennials will make up the 75% of the workforce replacing the Boomer generation. But, are they ready for the workforce and is the workforce ready for them? I think they would be ready if businesses are able to change and adapt towards them.

Generation Y are less brand loyal and the speed of the Internet has helped with the flexibility to change in its fashion, style consciousness and where and how it is communicated with. Lastly, Generation Y whichranges from 1995-2012. According to Generational Kinetics there are currently over 23 million Gen Z in the United States. Gen Z members are still largely kids and adolescents but have earlyindications of being increasingly self-aware, self-reliant, innovative and goal-oriented.One key difference from Millennials and Gen Z is that they don’t remember a time before social media. As a result, they tend to live much more of their entire lives from interacting with friends and family to making major purchases online and via their smartphones. Therefore, Gen Z kids will grow up with a highly sophisticated media and computer environment and will be more Internet savvy and expert than their Gen Y

To prevent this, Gavatorta recommends implementing new techniques in the workplace to practice bridging the gaps between these relationships through management and employees. Gavatorta suggests avoiding assumptions, creating a common language, building trust, etc. These guidelines will connect the potential communication gaps. Steve Gavatorta states, “the key to is to realize that in many ways Gen Y’ers are indeed different, but they also have many of the desires, motivations, and behaviors as do the rest of us.” Gavatorta’s point is that they are different, but they try to reach the same goals as everyone else. Very soon, Millennials will occupy most of the workplace. According to Carol Axten from Millennials at Work she believes, “By 2015,

Millennials tend to be technologically advanced and eager to learn. They also value social responsibility and team-work. They are often seen as impatient and quick to express opinions without having all of the data. Millennials are quick to jump-ship if they do not feel if they are progressing fast enough, often at speeds that might be seen as unreasonable. Dayan (2005) says that about 5.6 million Millennials are about to enter the employment market. Millennials are said to be the most challenging generation for employers.

Millennials, known as Generation Y, are those born from 1981 through 2001. Kitces (2005) states that the financial planning profession has fallen behind in setting clear expectations about how to develop a career in financial planning, and the result being a

Many changes are happening in the workforce today. Our labor environment consists of multiple generations, which creates fundamentally differing approaches to everything from work ethics, business management, and co-worker cooperation. The most recent generation, commonly known as “Generation Y” or the “Millennial” generation, is slowly taking over the workforce. Because they bring with them a radically new mindset and opinion of labor, the global business infrastructure should be modified to not only accommodate “Millennials,” but also to remain sympathetic to the business practices characteristic of previous generations. Doing so will provide more harmony and productivity among co-workers of different generational backgrounds.

GEN Y ( Also called as Millenials):Millennial have grown up with technology and are comfortable with change. They value skill development and enjoy the challenge of new opportunities. Millennial are able to multi task, they want the flexibility to work where and when they want so that they can pursue their outside interests.

As I grew up I realized that my life is very different from the life that my parents and my grandparents lived and probably will be different from the life my children will live. Some people say that every generation is different from each other. Throughout history many generation have been named after something that it’s said to describe them in every way, Tim Urban called the generation I live in the Generation Y or GYPSY’s. The generation my parents lived in was called Generation X or Baby Boomers. The Gen X and Y are very different in some aspects while in other they are very similar.

The generation of the technology, the delayed life choices, the impatience, the reliance on our parents, more commonly known as Generation Y or Millennials, is the generation born between 1980 and 2000. Older generations are always finding fault with what we, the Millennials, do or say or didn’t do or didn’t say. The world is changing so fast, we can hardly keep up. It is bad enough we have to push to learn as much as we can and apply the knowledge effectively, let alone being criticized for every move we make by our elders, who don’t really seem to help matters but complicate them.

After being with my company for over twenty years there have been many organizational changes. In my role as a hiring manager, it is important to understand the generational differences between employees. Generational terms like, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and whatever comes next may be indicative of general patterns. However, we must be mindful that, while each generation develops a kind of collective identity, generational stereotypes must be seen for what they are, oversimplified labels. It is much more helpful to view all generations as complex groups made up of people with all kinds of values, goals, and points of view.

Looking at what is commonly referred to as Generation Y might therefore be an insightful way to discuss how the recent epoch changes to the economic, social, political and technological context in which individual and society exist. Generation Y is a term used in the popular press, company research and some academic research. Organizations have started to recognize that Generation Y is somehow different and have started to find out how they are different. Although Generation Y is one of the more popular terms for this generation, there are various other terms and names have been applied to it,

According to Margaret Haughn (2015) Millennials or Generation Y is a term used to describe, "Individuals who reached “adulthood around the 21st century”. This includes people born as early as 1976 and as late as 2004. In the U.S. there is about 76 million millennials. Millennials can often be described and stereotyped as lazy, sensitive, and entitled in the work place. This stereotype might be true of some millennials work ethic but like a stereotype it is not true of all. Millennials like all generations have good and bad workers that bring positives and negatives to the changing workforce. They bring new ideas and methods that can have a positive outcome for businesses and most importantly for customers.