There's no hotter topic in human resource management at present than how to manage Millennials (aka Generation Y), the age 30-and-under members of the workforce. Millennials are the "kids nowadays!" that managers from previous generations fret about. Typical challenges older people experience in working with Millennials surfaced during a conversation I recently had with a group of executives. For example: "I used to be able to give an order to a young employee and expect it to be carried out at once. Now I have to spend 20 minutes explaining why it's important."
The stereotype Millennials get tagged with goes like this: they are a generation of smartphone addicts who live for feedback and praise, lack appropriate deference, feel entitled to rapid advancement but are unwilling to "pay their dues," prioritize personal life and work-life balance over employers' needs, and think they should be able to work wherever, whenever, and however they want. Although this portrait drives a robust market for multigenerational workforce training, it misconstrues the qualities of employees born in the last two decades of the 20th century — while over-hyping the differences between them and older employees.
