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I will briefly sum up a few points is that there is a misconception that the Millennials are lazy and etc when the boomers and Gen X did the same thing when they enter the workplace. Now the best point is that the work place is changing, and in a sense Gen Y is adapting to it. The best example of Gen Y being perceived as lazy or not loyal is the fact that we, as I'm a millennial, have seen so many companies in the last decade cut benefits, lay off people who were loyal to the company for years, and even fire people for simply not agreeing with a manager on every idea they had. That last part is true as I've seen it and eventually got out of that environment.
To be honest that is my biggest beef with the working world nowadays is the mentality of companies treating people like a thing or a statistic instead of treating them like human beings. I don't mean we need our hands hold everyday or anything like that, but the fact I've seen managers never thank anyone and just nitpick everyone's ideas that aren't their own is too common. The mentality that we can easily replace you, but you should be 100% loyal to us and not question us is ridiculous. If company loyalty payed off like it used to 50 years ago I will agree with the perception that we are entitled, but seeing managers and the environment treating everyone like crap shouldn't equate to "I turn a blind eye and be a robot yes man while waiting for a pink slip due to not executing the company vision and mission statement a 120%."
Some of you will say I'm exaggerating, but truthfully they are many places that act that way. I know I'm not the only generation who has been mistreated this way, especially in the last 10 years. It is an economic issue; however, the biggest difference between my generation to Gen X and boomers is we are at the beginning of our careers, and we still feel like we can shape the future by being vocal and trying to change things. No offense to the older generations, but you are at the twilight or nearing the end of your peak. It's the fact of life as most Gen Xs are in their 40s and boomers are closer to retirement which basically leaves Gen Y as the bulk of the workforce.
Anyway, these are my thoughts and hopefully the conversation will stay civilized.
Panderson is essentially saying that gen Y lack of loyalty to employers is understandable because employers today are not loyal to them. Gen Yers are following their own aspirations and not just settling for a desk job that their parents think they should take.
I would generally agree and add that you're only young once, so live life like the adventure it is, and try a lot of different paths until you find the one that suits you best. Even then, be ready to reinvent yourself as your current situation grows stale and new opportunities arise.
Also, I don't think employers are any more or less loyal than in days of yore. Companies were once more stable, true, but there was a time when it was a lot easier to fire people for pretty much any reason. What's changed today is the fast paced global economy. You may have a great product, and 300 people helping you make it and sell it, but then some guy in Asia comes up with a way to make a copy for 1/10 the cost and suddenly you're out of business.
Loyalty to employees is all very well in a time of great prosperity, when the rest of the world's industries have been destroyed by war. But in a high cost, high tax, high litigation, highly regulated society like ours, it's not really an option anymore.
I would advise millennials, and anyone else on the job market, to be constantly looking around, updating your skills, keeping ahead of the pack, and you'll do OK.
a WTF article. everyone 'hates their life' at some point, more than once a year lol. you still have to put some time on whatever it is you hate and later discover yourself loving it. Its so basic I dont understand why this is difficult to teach kids these days. And this idiot author is just another 'caring mom' or something
I hated NYC, but i stayed, then I learned to love it. I didnt like Houston/Oil and Gas, but I stayed, it's ok I guess. I dont like my bosses, but I stayed, hey turns out they'll be major players in my future. Now I make more money than I dreamed of and do whatever I want to do (well, I let my family do that), I just race cars and stuff
a WTF article. everyone 'hates their life' at some point, more than once a year lol. you still have to put some time on whatever it is you hate and later discover yourself loving it. Its so basic I dont understand why this is difficult to teach kids these days. And this idiot author is just another 'caring mom' or something
I hated NYC, but i stayed, then I learned to love it. I didnt like Houston/Oil and Gas, but I stayed, it's ok I guess. I dont like my bosses, but I stayed, hey turns out they'll be major players in my future. Now I make more money than I dreamed of and do whatever I want to do (well, I let my family do that), I just race cars and stuff
The thing with Houston is the growth in the area has been great; however, I think I will suffocate under the humidity. Before I moved to Chicago and United took over Continental, I remember connecting a flight in Houston and within a second I step out of the plane my clothes felt sticky. lol
Also I don't think she is a caring mom, but is explaining what we perceive. We, as in Gen Y, do need to accept work is work; however, I've seen too many young people get crap on by upper level people. It's one thing if we had constructive criticism, but I've been in environments in which managers hate young people who are too ambitious. The managers who said that love having meetings, nitpicking everyone below them, and being yes men to the upper level people.
Much of the bitterness and lack of loyalty demonstrated by the younger generation is a direct result of what they have experienced in life. Many of them no doubt saw their parents thrown under the bus at some point - laid off for being "too old" or "too expensive" or just flat-out replaced when the jobs were sent overseas (or the visa workers were brought in - same effect either way.) Top that off with their own experiences in the work world, which amount to the same thing - total lack of rewards for their effort, constant layoff so senior management can get a bigger bonus, real jobs being replaced with part-time, poverty wage work - and it's no wonder they have no loyalty to any corporation. Most of them are also keenly aware of the fact that there simply aren't enough jobs to go around, so people are going to be out of work regardless of their education, experience, etc. It's good to see that they are aware of this, since there's certainly been no shortage of denial about these problems in some quarters.
That being said, one still needs to work when one's on the job. I can't speak for the work ethic of the younger workers vs. the that of the older ones since, quite frankly, I've seen about the same percentage of useless people in all age groups. What seems to drive up that number is company culture; if a company makes a habit of protecting useless people based on their connections, the number of useless, connected people will steadily increase with time until little is getting done. So, I don't think that's an age related thing, at least not based on my experiences.
Much of the bitterness and lack of loyalty demonstrated by the younger generation is a direct result of what they have experienced in life. Many of them no doubt saw their parents thrown under the bus at some point - laid off for being "too old" or "too expensive" or just flat-out replaced when the jobs were sent overseas (or the visa workers were brought in - same effect either way.) Top that off with their own experiences in the work world, which amount to the same thing - total lack of rewards for their effort, constant layoff so senior management can get a bigger bonus, real jobs being replaced with part-time, poverty wage work - and it's no wonder they have no loyalty to any corporation. Most of them are also keenly aware of the fact that there simply aren't enough jobs to go around, so people are going to be out of work regardless of their education, experience, etc. It's good to see that they are aware of this, since there's certainly been no shortage of denial about these problems in some quarters.
That being said, one still needs to work when one's on the job. I can't speak for the work ethic of the younger workers vs. the that of the older ones since, quite frankly, I've seen about the same percentage of useless people in all age groups. What seems to drive up that number is company culture; if a company makes a habit of protecting useless people based on their connections, the number of useless, connected people will steadily increase with time until little is getting done. So, I don't think that's an age related thing, at least not based on my experiences.
Thank you. I've seen a bunch of older workers who are just as lazy as young people. The only difference is they have become experts at delegating work and finding an excuse, or a reason like they need to go to a bunch of meetings to a project they are loosely tied to by being copied on a email chain.
Before this latest crisis, you never heard of a skills gap like you do today. I don't think the workers have mysteriously lost skills - companies just have the ability to be picky. I'm sure you had an honest to God skills gap in some fields, but now it is the parroted line.
Bad governance is also a problem. Where I was from in TN, politicians repeatedly made poor policy decisions. This has discouraged many quality businesses from relocating and all we have is low wage trash employment. This isn't even a partisan issue - both Democrats and Republicans are largely brain dead to the troubles of the common man. Bad or inept governance, regardless of party, is killing this country.
Agreed. Of course, keep in mind that you can with no effort at all find mental cases who honestly believe that all the people who are out of work are "lazy bums with no skill who don't want to work." Because apparently we're to believe that all of a sudden millions upon millions of Americans forgot their skills and education and decided that's it better to live in poverty on unemployment vs. having real jobs. Any society in which a large percentage of the people can arrive at such an insane conclusion is one that is both lacking in reasoning ability and much of a future.
Anyone with an internet connection can hunt for jobs, and if they look in a field in which they have experience, they will rapidly arrive at the conclusion that the "skills gap" is a myth - the companies are simply creating unreasonable expectations for employment. When job requirements are so narrow that the only "qualified" applicants are those who work at that company, it becomes impossible for the unemployed to find work - and this doesn't even factor in nonsense such as "no unemployed need apply" or fake jobs that exist only to bring in visa workers, give the job to a friend or relative, etc.
Governance by both parties has failed since both of them answer to the same vested interests - and those entities see no value in maintaining the American middle class, nor do they hold any loyalty to this nation; once they strip out all the wealth from us, they'll just move someplace else like glorified parasites.
Companies no longer give decent raises each year, so in order to get pay increases like the older generation used to get we change jobs every few years. Changing jobs will get you about a 10% increase in my field. Whereas our yearly raise is typically just at or below inflation. Also a company will ditch you in a heartbeat if the numbers just arent there, so we will do the same to the company. All is fair in love and war. And these days the job marketplace is war.
Before this latest crisis, you never heard of a skills gap like you do today. I don't think the workers have mysteriously lost skills - companies just have the ability to be picky. I'm sure you had an honest to God skills gap in some fields, but now it is the parroted line.
Bad governance is also a problem. Where I was from in TN, politicians repeatedly made poor policy decisions. This has discouraged many quality businesses from relocating and all we have is low wage trash employment. This isn't even a partisan issue - both Democrats and Republicans are largely brain dead to the troubles of the common man. Bad or inept governance, regardless of party, is killing this country.
There is a skills gap in the sense that everyone can't get someone in the 80th percentile performance wise. To compound they issue, they only pay them in the 50th percentile pay range.
There is also the problem of how companies advertise jobs and hire. They just throw up a posting on Monster or something, and get hundreds of resume's. Then they have an automated system to filter out people and then HR/recruiter type folk, who don't have any clue what the job actually entails, run the system and do additional filters. Of course, in order to talk to a human, many people feel the need to embellish their applications. Of course, once this is one reason why people think people are generally useless - because one has to game the system to talk to someone.
The other problem is that anyone can join the job boards and apply for any jobs.
The last issue is that companies claim they want to "target the top 1% of candidates." Those candidates are not on the job boards, and are constantly spammed on LinkedIn to the point that it would be a full time job to answer everyone. They generally can get employment whenever or wherever they so choose. You're just a name on the computer screen. Many hiring managers and recruiters (both internal and external) are adverse to actually going to places where these people hang out for whatever reason, like trade meetings.
Companies no longer give decent raises each year, so in order to get pay increases like the older generation used to get we change jobs every few years. Changing jobs will get you about a 10% increase in my field. Whereas our yearly raise is typically just at or below inflation. Also a company will ditch you in a heartbeat if the numbers just arent there, so we will do the same to the company. All is fair in love and war. And these days the job marketplace is war.
And this is why people leave. Money and promotions (which are related to money).
If I can go to another company and get 10%-15% off the bat, why wouldn't I go?
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