مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

In an internet post dated May 11, 2015, the Pew Research Center noted that as of the first quarter of 2015, members of the Millennial Generation had surpassed their predecessors (Generation X, or Gen X) as the largest generation in the U.S. labor force (Fry, 2015). The proportion of millennials in the workforce will only continue to increase throughout the era of Baby Boomer Generation retirements. As more and more work teams face the challenge of integrating the newest working generation with older colleagues, the work environment may encounter productivity challenges if changes are not made to accommodate employees with very different attitudes and expectations. Many of our former students who are members of Generation X (and, even, older millennials) have been working their way up the corporate ladder for several years, and they now report that their younger millennial (also known as Generation Y, or Gen Y) co-workers often leave the slightly older group feeling as if they are ‘old souls’ in the workplace. Descriptions we have heard of the shifting work environment include the scenario of a team sitting around a table at a client’s office to review papers and financial data. Gen X employees vocalize their questions and concerns, whereas millennials often text each other. Similar comments have come from both senior and experienced young professionals. Neither the type of employer nor the geographical region seems to matter.

In a more formal assessment of the generational differences in attitudes toward technology, the Cisco Corporation’s 2011 Cisco Connected World Technology Report indicates that one-third of college students (most members of the Millennial Generation) believe that the internet is as important to the human condition as air, water, food and shelter. As a generation that has no recollection of a world before the internet, over half of the millennial respondents claimed that they, personally, could not live without the internet as an integral part of their lives, preferring to part with their sense of taste or smell rather than their smartphone while Gen X respondents treated the role of technology with slightly greater reserve (Cisco Corporation, 2011). This illustrates how different the youngest employees’ way of learning, communicating, and working are relative to previous generations.

Our experiences in the classroom, coupled with our recent research, have made us aware of the importance of dealing with differences in perceptions and attitudes among the generations in the workplace. We believe that a focus on understanding the motivations of millennials in terms of their duty, drive, and reward can help to resolve many of the challenges with an intergenerational workforce. Hershatter and Epstein (2010) report that although the values of millennials are not necessarily different from previous generations, their approach to work and the workplace is indeed different. Millennials have an experience with technology, coupled with ‘‘their positive experience inside organizations and institutions during their school years’’ (Hershatter & Epstein, 2010, p. 212), that impacts the modern relationship between early-career employees and organizations. The authors also argue that the expectations of millennials with respect to organizational accommodation (adjustment to the desires of the employee) provide an opportunity to utilize the many contributions that millennial employees can bring to the workplace.