3 tips in the Workplace for Millennials and the Generation Before
Millennials or Generation Y is the largest workforce in the market. The following are tips for employers, co-workers, managers and generations before Generation Y in which I will be referring to as “GEN Before”. I will be referring to the Millennials as Gen Y or Millennials.
Being a Millennial myself, these are some good habits to follow.
Stop Calling Them Millennials
If you call any Millennial, a millennial, the first response you will get is “Am I really a millennial?” or “I am NOT a millennial!” There is a huge negative connotation associated with that word.
Millennial: We have all been called that and yes you are still a Millennial. Believe it or not, when you say anything to that nature, you are proving everyone how much of millennial you really are. Instead of focusing so much on the word itself, start focusing on how the millennial generation is quite like the generation before us. You should focus on what they are referring to. More often than not, they will not be able to explain themselves.
GEN Before: Stop calling them Millennials. Instead, call them Gen Y. One statement that bothers millennials the most is that millennials are entitled and are lazy. When calling them a millennial, you are forgetting that each person has their own personality; Millennials are striving to be unique. If you keep calling them Millennials, you don’t know understand all the characteristics that define a Millennial.
They are doing whatever it takes to change the mindset of being lazy and everyone knows how hard it is to change someone’s mind.
For both parties to avoid sounding ignorant, both parties need to be aware of Millennial characteristics before speaking.
Grow with Gen Y
The major thing a Gen Y wants is to make a difference. It does not matter how minimalist this change or growth might be. We all want to leave the world a better place than when we first came into it. You might be the generation that went through the World War, Cold War, the Vietnam War, or 9/11; seeing destruction has created a sense of changing the world for the better.
Gen Y: Learn to be patient. Growth does not happen overnight. Take and complete projects you love, quickly learn and excel at things you are terrible at. Start working towards the future and start looking towards Gen Z so you are not stuck in the same loop as the Generation before us.
GEN Before: As an employer, you might have been great at creating wealth for yourself and growing a company but you are not good at retaining the Gen Y’s attention because you are not sure how to advance Gen Y’s personal growth. Hire Accounting Your Life to get to the next level.
Automation and Technological Advances
Gen Y is about efficiency and rely heavily on automation and technology. It can sometimes be confused with lazy instead of efficiency.
Gen Y: This can be hard to do, but you need to learn from older generations first before jumping into technology. Try to make your changes after you have found the inefficiencies. Remember not to rely solely on automation; sometimes an assignment does require human analytics.
GEN Before: Keep in mind these three important thoughts.
1. Stop thinking that you are efficient. There is always room to improve.
2. Do not think you are technologically advanced. You might be using new technology in one area but not being technologically efficient in other aspects such as printing too much instead of going paperless. Be open to change and new ideas.
3. Keep changing and evolving. Be open to change and new ideas, if you don’t you will not retain Gen Y.
There are many more tips, but I think is this the best place to start. Gen Y, continue making strides, rock the boat and get in trouble because of it, learn from it and pivot and make changes. Generation before, remember we are a derivative of you and that you had a lot of the same personality traits that Gen Y have. Learn to adapt.
Gen Z, I cannot wait to learn from you as well as give you a hard time.
G E T M O R E
from your satisfied employees per generation