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 “Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.” - George Orwell

Recently, I heard a conversation where the participants claimed that when they were 20-30 years old, they were just like Millennials. These individuals thought that as Millennials “grow up,” they will become more like “them” now. I found that interesting and it got me to thinking about whether their comments have any validity.

I do believe it is true that young adults, those in college and coming out of college, believe that they know much more than they, in fact, do. For example, when I came out of college as a high school teacher, I knew exactly how to run a classroom, relate to kids as well as get them to learn math. My first year of teaching, I probably sent 30 kids to the principal’s office with pink slips. I taught high school for 7 more years after that. I only gave out 1 pink slip in all of those 7 years. In other words, I learned a ton that first year…mostly that I didn’t know as much as I thought I did.

From that perspective, I agree that most people learn a lot as they experience life. Millennials are not exempt from this process and they will learn a lot as time goes on. But will they be just like us “older” people when they get our age?

I don’t think so.

Why?

Because a generation is the way it is because of events that happened to people in their very impressionable ages. That is, between about 12 years old to 18 years old, what happens to them and their family has a big influence on their life from that point on. Divorce of their parents then is huge. The music they end up liking is formed then. The way the economy works affects them; perhaps their dad and mom get laid off. Parenting trends impact them (remember Dr. Spock?). Technology trends are huge as well.

For example, if you were generally in those impressionable ages when Columbine and 9/11 happened (a millennial), then life has become much more urgent for you. I (a boomer) grew up in a relatively safe time. Yes, I remember hiding under my desk in case of a nuclear attack, but nothing ever happened, so life was always “safe.” Millennials have not grown up with that attitude. They have known terrorist attacks and extremely negative events their whole life. Why shouldn’t they feel that life is temporary and therefore, everything is more urgent? The environment and all that they’ve been taught leads them to believe, deep down, that we don’t have much time left on this planet.

That has ramifications for the workplace. They want companies that care about what they, themselves, care about. Being socially and environmentally concerned is a big deal. Companies that don’t at least have some form of activism in some area that helps people or the environment will find it hard to get millennials to work for them.

One statistic has been around for a long time: people don’t quit their company, they quit their boss. This is true and the stat is that 75% of people quit for that reason. However, it appears that for millennials, this number is closer to 85%. In other words, you need to have a good boss as well as a good value for your employees for them to stay with you very long. We boomers didn’t care quite as much about those things as millennials do.

Face it, millennials are the future of your workforce. They have strong feelings about a lot of things that are not directly related to work. For you to continue in your success, you need to understand these feelings and find ways to help address them.

If this topic is of interest to you, we have a workshop coming up on Feb. 13. Register here is you’d like to attend.

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