Well I donât know â I am a boss and I am far from a jerk. As a matter of fact I spend a lot of time trying to make sure my team is productive, happy and have work life balance. And yet, many of the millennials on my team still think it isnât enough. They expect a significant amount of flexibility in location, hours etc. than my others for example and are much more concerned with loving what they do â I donât know at that age I was fresh out of school and needed to make money so I guess loving what I did was quite secondary.
When I ask them to be present in the office it is for the benefit of relationships â which by the way is positive for THEIR careers as well. I am not doing it to be a jerk.
they reject traditional office work as a moneymaking tactic;)
I had a millennial quit because ten weeks paid maternity leave wasnât enough. Admittedly, one experience isnât data, but I know other employers with similar experiences.
Chiming in on team old and crotchety, but my experiences in both private practice and the government are similar. There is certainly a difference in attitude, motivation and work ethic. There also seems to be a shortening of time horizons. Some of that I think is because of the ever increasing portability fo careers. A lot of younger people donât see the benefit of grinding out the first half a dozen years of a career in order to get choicer asignments or a better gig when it is more than likely they will be working for a different firm or in a different industry by that point. Then again, some of the grinding and scut work is necessary to establish competence in the first place, something very, very few âkids todayâ have coming out of school. For the record, I was incompetent as all get out when I got my first job too. That part at least is not new.
^Very similar experiences. I think many of them have unrealistic expectations of what work is vs what it should be. To their credit, they do seem to be willing to give up income for quality of life (QOL). I think that is one of the big differences. GenX is interested in $, and they measure each benefit in relation to what it will cost them in hard dollars. Because we are the top earners now, it costs us more for all these bigger benefits, and we use less of them. Cultural difference between the 2 generations. We expect them to work as hard and long as we did to get to the top. Unfortunately, we also raised them, and we failed to make them work for or see the value of fringe benefits in hard dollars.
An interesting study would be to try to narrow this group. All millennials are not like this. So why do some act this way? Is is a class or income thing? Anecdotally, the ones raised in relative wealth seem more entitled in the workforce than those raised in a typical househould without a lot of luxuries. Itâs as if their starting point is seen to be where their parents are currently (how they were raised). But we all start at the bottom unless mom or dad is the boss!
Unless they want to unionize, good luck. If they find the better finge benefits, take the job and work hard to keep it. No one begrudges them what they want, as long as they understand there is a hefty cost attached to most of those things. So if they will accept less $ for more flexibility, benefits, food, etc, more power to them! Maybe they are on to something and can change the future.
Or maybe after they have kids, a house, mortgage, tuition bills, etc, those other things will fall away and $ will top the list again? I guess weâll see.
I have a few great Millennials on my team. The others generally go on their ownâŠ
A close friend has a small business. Her millennial employee quit because her âcreativity was being stifled and (her) friendships were suffering.â
This young woman was still living at home.
@PokeyJoe OMG!
My friend (owner) was understandably frustrated! Last I heard, she was looking for a more mature replacement.
A close friend is a very senior executive at Amazon. He has a mandatory teach-in with mid-levels managers on how to handle parents who try to manage their kidâs Amazon career progress.
Maybe slightly off topic, but most of those âkidsâ are millennials.
I wonât speak to a parent.
^pretty sure thatâs the gist of the teach-in.
I think that the expectation to have a work/life balance is completely justified and donât find anything outrageous about the statement of the young worker in PokeyJoeâs post. I wasnât born and raised in the US and to me, the workaholic culture of this country is frankly appalling. Itâs not healthy physically or mentally including the expectation that work e-mails need to be checked at home. I have a lot of respect for people of all ages who are able to find that balance.
I see it a lot at my work place where if people are not overwhelmed and/or overworked, then they are considered lazy and itâs just wrong. Numerous studies have proven that we are more productive and happy at work when we are able to establish healthy limits in our work hours and to have enough time to pursue other interests.
I have to say: My kids are millennials, as are their friends. My wife leads a team with a number of millennials. I have several associates who are in their late 20s or early 30s.
My personal experience, and my wifeâs (who feels really strongly about this), and what I see from my kids and their friends, is completely opposite to the cliche being repeated here. The millennials with whom I work work extremely hard and are really dedicated. Yes, they appreciate some flexibility about when to be in the office and what to wear, but no one resents them for it because they are absolutely on the team. My wife loves the idealism and commitment of the millennials with whom she works. She has a lot more problems with Gen-Xers than with millennials, because the Gen-Xers sometimes seem only about their compensation and status, not about the mission.
Itâs true that my kids and most of their friends want their work to be meaningful, and at the margin (but only at the margin) they value that more than additional money. But they generally think their work IS meaningful, and they certainly understand the relationship between the big picture and the gruntwork required to get the details right.
Now, my son did quit his second job recently. And he probably told the owner that he wanted to spend more time with his fiancee and other friends, which was true. What he probably didnât tell the owner was that he was furious that he wasnât even offered an interview for his bossâs (full-time) position when it came open, notwithstanding that the boss had recommended that the owner try to hire him for that position, and that the outside person the owner did hire had roughly the same experience he did. Most of the co-workers he felt close to had left the company over the previous couple of years, and it wasnât worth it to him to give up five nights every week for not that much money if his contributions werenât valued. So maybe the owner is grousing about entitled millennials, but the fact is that the owner made a decision not to promote from within the organization, and suffered the predictable consequences.
You can find it appalling, but it is our culture. Itâs what Americans do. We are a work culture. Itâs why we are where we are now.
Stifling creativity is not a valid reason to quit a job without having another lined up in my book!
@JHS Not all my millennials are like this-- I agree that I have a few that are dedicated as your friend describes. But I find several of them push the envelope of my willingness to be flexible. For example they each have an arrangement where they telecommute Mondays and Fridays but are expected in the office T W Th-- all our professionals are in and it is a good thing for many of our meetings/workshops to be in person.
A few of these people routinely come in on those days past 10 am, and then I have some that routinely find some reason they need to telecommute on the other days (not Mon and Fri) and they get ample vacation and other benefits,.
Its like I give them an inch and they take a mile. I would NEVER have done that so early in my career
Yes, absolutely, as an immigrant, I would do the same - have another job lined up first and we donât know if that wokrer also did or not. And the statement âwe are where we are nowâ can be interpreted in many different ways. Yes, thatâs why a lot of us are stressed out and overworked, donât have enough time to spend with our families, donât get enough sleep, donât have enough vacation time and are lucky to have some sick time and some parental leave at our workplaces (something that is a basic human right, not a privilege), thatâs why we eat junk food because we go for something that is fast to make because we donât have the time to prepare healthy nutritious meals and on and on and on⊠I am referring to an average âweâ as I do realize people on this forum probably have more resources and options than an average American.
Iâm going to have to disagree with that. If people work multiple jobs to survive, then I agee. But otherwise I donât see a 50-ish hour week as the torture you describe. And most people with one job donât routinely put in more than that.
I am an older millennial, and yes, my generation IS, by and large, coddled. I donât need some biased article to try and convince me otherwise.
Source: First hand experience working with many new hires.
I know @HRSMom â my people get 4 weeks vacation, lots of company holidays and work at home 2 days a week. My company gives new parents several months leave, including fathers if they so choose. And yet I still have those who think it isnât enough. I mean it is work, you know a JOB