‘Y’ work when you can play

Each year, a set of new, young and hopeful faces enter the workforce. Unfortunately, as CBS News recently pointed out, managers find working with these newcomers difficult. As Generation Y, the first half of the Millennials, starts trickling into the work force, journalist Marley Safer reports that top companies in the nation, such as Ernest & Young and Merill Lynch, are hiring consultants. These consultants teach the workers, a generation that is accustomed to only hearing “yes,” how to deal with rejection, failure and “no.”
The Millennial generation, born between the years 1982 and 2004, is dubbed the Peter Pan generation for never “growing up” and for depending on and living with their parents even after graduating college. In 2010, 27 percent of college graduates did not have jobs relating to the field in which they majored in college. Sixty-two percent reported that they have jobs that do not require a college degree, according to Jaison Abel and Richard Deitz of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
In January 2013, the national unemployment rate was 7.9 percent, while the Millennials’ rate was 13.1 percent, the U.S Department of Labor reports. Millennials are currently experiencing difficulty finding and obtaining employment, as the national economy recovers from recession. Also, PricewaterhouseCoopers found that 72 percent of Millennials had to compromise in order to get a job.
Yet, the same study also concluded that 86 percent of college graduates would consider leaving their job if they discovered that their employer’s social values differed from their own. The study reflects the desire of autonomy, a quality that is often attributed to the Millennials.
Other characteristics of the Millennials are also seen in work behavior. Generation Y Research Firm Millennial Branding surveyed one thousand workplace managers about young Generation Y workers. The majority of the managers believed that the young workers get distracted easily, have a poor attitude, and think they deserve more in return when working. They also believed that this generation lacks teamwork skills and positive attitudes at work, concluding Generation Y is less cooperative in the workplace than older generations.
Young-Chul Kim, product manager of Chrome River, sees the differences between his generation and Generation Y in the workplace.
“[Younger people] seem to be a little more impatient,” Kim said. “The Internet and its speed is very fast, [whereas] getting information in the past took a lot longer before. [The younger generation] seems to want everything, along with immediate satisfaction.”
According to Marian Salzman, an ad agency executive who has managed Millennials, some Millennials expect the job they have to work around the commitments they have outside of their jobs. Salzman says that some Millennials are completely unreliable, clinging to priorities which they put before their job.
However, according to Michael Franco, author of the article “How Generation Y Works,” Generation Y “works to live” rather than “lives to work.” Millennials wants leisure and happiness in their careers, even if it means sacrificing a bigger salary for jobs they are passionate about.