Commentary
It's Not a Millennial Thing -- It's The Economy
- by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, August 31, 2016
These days you read article after article and hear session after session at conferences that millennials represent a different mindset and a different approach to business. But more than how they were raised, it’s the economic environment affecting them. In short, I don’t think it’s a “millennial thing.” I think it’s an “economic thing.”
When I got my first job, it was due to a lot of hard work and diligence. I sent out a few hundred resumes and took any meeting I could get, and once I landed a gig I operated under the assumption there were 10 people standing behind me ready to do my job better than me, and for less money (although in retrospect I don’t know how anyone could have been paid less money that I was in my first job).
When my bosses asked me to do something, I always responded with a firm “yes” — and never once did I question the assignments. Call it fear – I was always afraid for my job. I figured I had to always be proving myself and looking to succeed in order to prove to the people around me that I was a valuable part of the team.
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I did my job and I did it well, but I also started a company on the side so I could supplement my income and find a way to survive and thrive in New York.
Millennials have been born into an economic environment where opportunities are around every corner. For a generation that was given a trophy just for showing up and participating, the rule is you should automatically be recognized and rewarded for being involved.
All that being said, I still don’t think it’s a generational thing – it’s simply the lack of fear for their careers. In fact I would go so far as to say their notion of a career is different. In my mind a career is something you strive to succeed to represent your value in the work force. It can carry similar weight to the legacy you leave with your family, although it very much takes second place because family is so vitally important to your well-being.
For a generation where start-ups abound, the millennial career takes more of a journeyman approach. It’s the difference between playing your whole career with one team, (for example, Derek Jeter or Michael Jordan) or following a different path where you follow your heart (like Kevin Durant or Lebron James). You do what you want when you want to, and you follow the path of your heart more than the path of your mind.
The difficulty lies in how you manage and motivate employees who are not following a clear path. If you can’t see the path, how do you know what it looks like? How do you manage employees when you know they carry around their resume on their phones and are willing to hand it to the next big person they meet – regardless of who sees them do so? How do you motivate them to succeed when their emotional ties to their careers are so tenuous and “matter of the moment”?
The economy drives much of the conversation. You have to create a working environment that feeds your team in both an intellectual as well as a financial manner, and you have to be looking to get the most value reciprocally out of your team while you have them.
A mentor of mine used to tell his people he knew they were only going to stick around for a period of between one to three years, but if they did a great job during that time, he would be a valuable reference for life and could help them throughout their entire careers. He always stayed true to his word, looking at his “alumni” more as graduates rather than ex-employees. That valuable shift in perspective has helped him throughout his career and has helped mold many people in the business.
Your approach as a manager has to shift with the economy and you have to understand the environment in which you hire, train and work with your employees. If you don’t, then you’re destined to fail.
Hey Cory, I agree in part, but not as a whole. I think there is a change in behavior based on watching college dropouts become billionaires, and the change in what employers look for in terms of experience. I was like you when I graduated, and my parents were pretty clear that I was on my own once I had a diploma in hand. But my nieces, nephews, friends' kids, and people I have hired trend more to entitlement than kids of the 90s and 00s. Don't forget, the late 90s were an amazing economic time. But now the skills that drive success are more transferable (development, analytics) that those with great educations are quickly lured into bigger jobs and better salaries without trying too hard.
So the part I would build on would be generationsl + the economy, in nearly equal parts. This generaion is less career-path oriented and more socially engaged, so what's important to them is the real difference from our post-college days (IMHO).
Just as parents of Millennials have created their mindset, companies today continue to cater to it. There is little or no fear of losing a job, because they have 10+ LinkedIn invites to interview for new jobs that pay more. Heck if we all received 10 offers for potential jobs each week, and future employers don’t care that we’ve been at our current job 3 months - we would begin to feel what many millennials are going thru. And would we still have the same commitment to work until 3:00am? If potential employers considered the long term impact of hiring someone with 4 jobs in 5 years, millennials would be staying put longer. Millennials are being enticed to move by a employers seeking to hire them and then being blamed for lacking work ethic. Yet there is so much written seeking to analyze their psyche of instead of asking the question: “who is in fact - creating the sense of entitlement in the millennial workforce by dangling new jobs, higher pay and free ping pong paddles”?
Does anyone remember when you were at your job for less than 2 years at a time - you were considered unemployable? See the current media expression of Millennials being the spoiled generation carries a lot of weight. But that is only in the field of software technology, online media. The reality from my viewpoint of managing 20 / 30 something's in advertising. They expect not to have to pay their dues based on they got a degree in history, tried to get a job as a teacher and couldn't from some branded college. That they have this student loan debt, so the pay me attitude comes out, "I borrowed, bussed tables, therefore, I am owed by society, you should pay me". I have had that generation come out and expect to be paid $75k with less than one-year of experience in Ad-Tech. Then they feel perfectly comfortable in telling you, how smart they are, how great they are, how stupid you are. They do not understand the hard work involved in making it, in the battles that have to be done. They just "Expect" to make it, they "Expect" to be treated like they work at Google, they "Expect" a whole helluva a lot, with intentions that you will simply step aside and give them your job and position. BUT,when I talk to people of the same generation who are not "Media" and "Software" in their late 20's and early 30's with a High School Diploma maybe one or two years of college, is they cannot find opportunities. They are not allowed to enter into the "Media" and "Software" verticals, even tho we all know they don't teach what we do in college. The issue as I see it is that "Media" and "Software" are missing on the core blue collar work ethic based on nothing more than a status quo. Meanwhile, in other countries such as Israel and China, that is not the case and as you can tell. They are eating our lunch.... Great article Corey!