Yes, someone finally has defended Generation Y! In a recent post on his blog, Thom Singer says something long overdue - the portrayals of Gen Y are "phooey!"
I've been collecting articles and white papers written about Gen Y for months to try to get some consistent sense of the group's motivations and expectations when it comes to work. However, I became frustrated with what I found because the content was so contrary to my own experiences working with Gen Y employees. One that I have kept starred for this post is an article from Fortune about how UPS is "training the untrainable Gen Yers." Along with that quote, I marked these as bogus (emphasis added):
"Much derided as a group of upstart technophiles of little work ethic and even less loyalty, Gen Yers aren't exactly a perfect fit for Big Brown. In fact, it's hard to imagine a worse match."
"But if there's one group that isn't down to be engineered, it's Generation Y, people who can't even be bothered to use punctuation, let alone memorize anything."
Wow, I really couldn't believe these and other such condescending lines in the story. I really expected some 24-year-old superstar at Deloitte or JPMorgan or even UPS to write in the following week with a message like Singer's - phooey! But no such note came (or was published), so I was left thinking:
- All I've been reading is true - Gen Yers read this article and just agreed.
- Why am I expecting a group as clearly lazy as Gen Y to write a letter?
Neither of those thoughts are true, and you know how I figured it out? By working and communicating with Gen Y employees rather than reading absurd articles and generalizations. Two examples:
I currently employ an intern who is finishing her final year of college, and is eyeing graduate school, while working close to 24 hours per week for my company. She has a great work ethic, is incredibly professional for 21, and genuinely wants to help the company however she can - marketing, client services, sales, whatever. She jumps at opportunities to learn new things, take on new projects and work extra hours. I guess she forgot to read the white paper about how she's supposed to ask for more money and demand that her role be perfectly defined?
Another Gen Yer, this one a friend of the family, graduated from college in 2006 and is trying hard to make it on her own in New York City. She still is figuring out exactly what she wants to do (uh oh, sounding like Y?), but is working hard at a job she cares about. With two affluent parents, I suppose she missed the article about how she's supposed to run home to Mom and Dad rather than "pay her dues" in the big city?
I'm not saying that all of the supposed attributes of Gen Y are false - there absolutely are generational differences that affect how people work and how companies can recruit and retain them. But the generalizations are garbage and, as Thom says, Gen Yers need to stand up for themselves. I think they are - by how they work and act and communicate.
But what do I know? I'm just a cynical Gen Xer.
