LAZY AND ENTITLED MILLENNIAL AT THE WORK-PLACE?

ROOTS…

Trophy kids or Millennial came to being between the early 1980’s and 2000’s. Born into the era of easily accessible information but exposed to major social-economic changes such as “Capitalism” and “The Great Depression”, they are often accused of being lazy, entitled, narcissistic or unfocused; but are far from that. They are just skeptical and value time and experience over age.

ARE THEY FULFILLED?

We all saw the talk by the best-selling author Simon Sinek’s 15-minute speech on 'The Millennial Question' on YouTube went viral causing a surge of debate, due to lack of facts or data. What left a mark was his observation on

“THE BEST CASE SCENARIO IS THAT YOU WILL HAVE AN ENTIRE POPULATION UP AND GOING THROUGH LIFE AND NEVER REALLY FINDING JOY. THEY WILL NEVER REALLY FIND DEEP…DEEP FULFILMENT IN WORK OR LIFE.”

However, the books on “Generation Me” and “Kid’s these days” give a more insightful take on the aforementioned topic, which dwells deeper at understanding them rather than putting a label. Reliable birth control, legalised abortion and a cultural shift toward parenthood as a choice made them understand the importance of the self.

“We not only need to find our sense of purpose but create a world where everyone has a sense of purpose.” -Mark Zuckerberg

Breaking with the stigmas…

Spoiled: Earlier families could achieve a middle-class status on earnings of one high-school- educated person but now it takes two. Moreover, teens feel the world demands perfection leaving them to crack under pressure. Their jobs even fail to provide them with a proper salary and accommodation.

Selfish: They find fulfilment in volunteering and take up activities or jobs that give them the acquired skills for the future.

Independent: They grew up with radial movies such as Bend it like Beckham or Meet the Focker’s and self-help books or D.I.Y., which have made them value being different and culturally acceptable.

“MEN RESEMBLE TIMES MORE THAN THEY RESEMBLE THEIR FATHERS.” - GENERATION ME (ARAB PROVERB)

But a rather callous thinking has led them to delay many rules.

Business professor John Trinkaus noted that failing to stop at particular sign Stops increased from 29% in 1979 to 97% in 1996.

The technology was found to facilitate dishonestly with student passing answers through camera phones or downloading Papers from internet. But even money can do same, with one of the heirs to the Walmart fortune allegedly paying her college Roommate around $20,000 to write papers for her.

Moreover having grown sinking stocks and corporate ruthlessness of "outsourcing" and "downsizing", leading the temptation to cheat and be the best even more compelling.

This leads us to the answer as to why a millennial would job-hop. The fear of skepticism or, yes over self-esteem leads them hopping like’s bunnies. The answer is to strike a balance.

A survey conducted by Roy Baumeister, the lead author of the research on an extensive review on self-esteem, apologised about focusing on self-esteem but rather on self-control and self-discipline as the latter creates a more arrogant nature.

In relation to the above statement, surveys on cross-cultural studies prove the same. While American students preserve their self-esteem at the expense of doing better at a difficult task, but when Asian students find out that they scored low on a particular task, they kept working on that task to improve on their performance.

Spoken by a true millennial in the book “The multi-hyphen method” by Emma Gannon, they sort after to work less but create more. Generation value a job that has a purpose. Why?

Team-work: They grew up with social media that instills in them a need for approval as a whole. 

Technocrat: Hardwired to technology and hence they know how to multitask and develop skills on their own with just a tap of appreciation.

Multiculturalism: From research carried out by UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute shows that interracial interaction among college freshmen has reached a record high and hence more accepting towards other cultures.

Globalism: With the access to pen-pals, Millennial grew up seeing things as global, connected, and open for business 24/7. Making them more tuned to thinking outside the box.

Flexibility: Although this might be seen as a disadvantage, the optimal engagement boost occurs when they spend 60 to 80 percent of their time- or 3-4 days a week –working remotely.

Genuine: According to Psychology Today, they thrive on being judged by their performance and respect those with experience rather than power. Making the workplace more genuine.

A generation cannot be generalised but its cultural, and socio-economic conditions play a major role.

It matters to how it can be distilled to get a positive outcome. Decisions on experiences and perceptions need to be backed by participatory and thoughtful calculations. Taking into consideration the features of ties, social and geographical proximity is commonly reported as conducive to information diffusion: strong ties, kinship, for instance, are shown to facilitate diffusion.

Every generation has its quirks! It cannot be seen as more or less but the outset of several factors acting upon it and learning to work around it.