Critique Essay

In the article, “Declining Student Resilience: A Serious Problem for Colleges”, Peter Gray states, “There has been an increase in diagnosable mental health problems, but there has also been a decrease in the ability of many young people to manage the everyday bumps in the road of life”. It has come up a lot that millennials do not have Grit, unlike other generations. Millennials come off as lazy or immature in society today. Millennials always have a reminder from their parents or grandparents saying, “back in my day....” or “you’re lucky, you have it easy”. Other generations tend to give millennials a harder time on how they are performing in a school setting. Some generations believe that millennials are babied by their parents. Everyone has their own opinions about other generations. There are many similarities and differences between millennials and other generations on how they perform in schools. Some examples on how they are different and similar are work ethic, pressure, and technology. These examples come from actual opinions from millennials and other generations on their perspectives when comparing millennials and other generations in a school setting.

In the article “A Generation of Slackers? Not So Much”, by Catherine Rampell, the author analyzes and challenges the popular stigma that Millennials are the laziest generation to have ever existed. Rampell begins her article with a staggering fact: “The unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds is a whopping 17.6 percent” (Rampell 388). And according to seventy-five percent of Americans, “Today’s youth are less virtuous and industrious than their elders” (Rampell 388). This may seem like an incredibly high percentage of Americans, but you might be astonished to learn that even “Two-thirds of millennials said older adults were superior to the younger generation when it came

“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

Millennials have a different point of view on what they expect on their work experience. Most

Ultimately, millennials are a complex demographic with key differences influenced by life

Joel Stein uses his article in TIME Magazine, “Millennials: The Me Me Me Generation” to address the underlying issues and positives of the millennial generation by using various forms of data, statistics and negativity. While he is mostly successful with his tactics, he goes to such extremes with his negativity that he loses some of his audience before he even has a chance to talk about anything else. Stein spends much of his article speaking about how the Millennial generation is lazy, however research suggests that the Millennials aren’t necessarily lazy, but are held in place for various reasons outside of their control.

They deplore the fact that a post-secondary education is no longer an automatic ticket to the perks of a middle class lifestyle. They also demonstrate distaste for institutions and labels, and feel that freedom of expression and liberation of self is fundamental for positive change. On that token, one of the most controversial topics of comparison between the Baby Boomers and the Millennials is that of work ethic. Boomers are often thought of as being hard-working and industrious. They often tie much of their self-worth directly to their professional achievements. They are often competitive which drives them to take on a host of professional responsibilities. This keeps them motivated and self-assured. Millennials have a tendency to want to start at the top, side-stepping the entry level positions and the upper rings of corporate ladder that Boomers dedicated decades of their time to

Stein claims that “millennials’ self­involvement is more a continuation of a trend than a revolutionary break from previous generations. They’re not a new species; they’ve just mutated to adapt to their environment” (31). He supports this assertion by using pathos, logos, and concession. Stein’s purpose is to explain millenial behavior to the older generation in order to recognize how millenials came to be and their importance in society. Even though he begins with a condescending tone addressing the negative attributes of millennials, he expresses a generally positive outlook on the qualities of millennials to the previous generations before them. This work

In “Millennials Go To College” by Neil Howe and William Strauss, they discuss the demographic in detail and define seven core traits of millennials. They discuss this group as beginning to finish up college, a group mentality focus, and extremely diverse (Strauss & Howe, 2003). What this means is that this group is generally higher-educated, more focused on groups, communities, and teams rather than themselves, and in general the group is accepting of diversity and views all people as equal. These busy individuals are often over stimulated by the amount of work and extracurriculars that they take on. Howe and Strauss also observed seven core traits of this demographic group which has the potential to have an effect on the way this group views themselves and the way they are viewed by others. These traits are that they are “special, sheltered, confident, team-oriented, conventional, pressured, and achieving” (Strauss & Howe, 2003). Each of these characteristics affects the way that this group engages in the world around them. These traits follow them through education, work, and especially healthcare, with regard to current engagement and how they will engage in the future.

As successive generations enter the workforce business leaders and managers continually face one challenge, “how do we motivate the next generation of employees?” The transition from Baby Boomer to Generation X, was considered a minor shift for businesses since they’re classified as the “me” and “individualist” generations. The Boomers and Generation X respected both authority and the traditional hierarchal structure, compared to the Generation Y more commonly known as Millennials are considered individuals who respect yet challenge authority and the traditional hierarchal structures. Within this article we’ll review “Gen X Is From Mars, Gen Y Is From Venus: A Primer On How To Motivates A Millennial” by Rob Asghar and “7 Surprising Ways To Motivate Millennial Workers” by Jenna Goudreau, two articles published by Forbes Magazine. After reviewing what Forbes’ Professional writers have to say about Millennials, we’ll hear what Millennial’s have to say about Forbes. While Generation X Lives to work, Generation Y works to live is the driving theme behind Rob Asghar’s article, he uses four mains point to explain what this means. He covers how Millennial’s concept of authority vastly differs from previous generations since Millennials were raised in an environment where their opinions mattered. Asghar discusses how the shift away from Generation X’s individualistic characteristic to Millennials global sense of community affects their motivation. In the second half of his article

In a work environment everybody wants to climb the totem pole. For Millennials, they want to rise to leadership without working too hard for it. They are trying to reach the leadership positions as fast as they can and at times they are unprepared for the position they enter because they have not experienced enough along the way. Where Millennials are too fast to rise to leadership, people considered to be Generation X, who are known for their hard work ethic and experience are often complacent in the workplace. Though they gained their experience (unlike Millennials) by working their way up the chain of command and gradually paying their dues and though they also do not expect to be handed a higher position, like Millennials who feel entitled to higher positions in the workplace, they are also not as motivated as Millennials. (Bresman)

“The number of employees over the age of 55 has increased by 30 percent; however, the number of 25- to 54-year-olds has only increased by 1 percent” (Claire, 2009). In 2008 the eldest of the 77 million baby-boomers turned 62. Estimates are that by the end of the decade about 40 percent of the work force will be eligible to retire. As people begin to reach the age of retirement there may be not be enough new employees to fill the gap (Clare, 2009). Companies need to find ways to attract Boomers and Millennials. Companies that want to attract Boomers and Millennials need to be creative in their culture, HR policies and work environments.

In an interview of 2016, Simon Sinek analyses and discusses the topic of Millennials within the workplace. Throughout Sinek’s speech in his interview, he explains the disadvantages which Millennials have faced while growing up in their generation. Now, Sinek claims that the reason why Millennials have been dealt such a “bad hand” in life, is a result of failed parenting strategies, and an imbalance of technology along with social media (which has advanced like never before within the adolescence of Millennials). Therefore, the imbalance of the internet and real-life interaction results in millennials being unable to form deep and meaningful relationships, in order to carry out happy and meaningful live in comparison to previous

The upcoming generation, millennials, are a new type of generation. They have proven to be the most educated generation, despite the hard times in the economy. Yet they still face criticism from their elders on their work ethic. Although they seem to all be lazy and not interested in working, not all millennials are like that. They just have different values in life, and balance work life with free time. Millennials have faced a lot of criticism on their work ethic, which has many questioning do millennials have a strong work ethic. They are said to be lazy narcissistic tech addicts, who don’t take any job seriously and slack off. What most don’t know is that the economy hasn’t been in the greatest of shape, this makes work ethic hard to

When it comes to Millennials, there is nothing that screams “business as usual.” Consequently, savvy leaders who want to remain successful in the global business arena, must concede their current method of attracting, engaging, developing and retaining Millennials as future global leaders is ineffective. Therefore, today’s leaders must develop a more compelling strategy to entice Millennials into leadership. Failure to use strategic foresight to recognize trends regarding future organizational trends and take timely actions to change their tried and true, old school philosophy regarding developing and retaining talented employees will result in losing the competitive edge, which is driven by technology-laden Millennial’s who are poised to innovation.