Illuminating Truths Debunking Myths

Uncovering Solutions

The Millennial Enigma

In 2010, 41% of U.S. college graduates seeking jobs

turned down offers.

They won’t take a job just for the sake of having a job.- U.S. National Association of Colleges and Employers

By 2025, millennials will make up 75% of the global

workforce.

- forbes.com, “Why You Can’t Ignore Millennials”

They are expected to impact the workplace, politics, and culture even

more greatly than the Baby Boomers did through…

• Internet• Social media • Shifting demographics

Our job?

materialistic

digital nativestech-savvy

narcissistic

hyper-connected

entitled

entrepreneurial

over-confident

Critiques From Non-Millennials

DEFINITIONSWho are they, really?

Generation Z: T.B.D.

Cultural Background:The Sharing Economy

Technology:• The digital era democratized access to information and training

– Content creation and innovation is cheaper• Exponential growth in computer and mobile device processing power• Born into instant communication technologies

Values:• 1980s-born self-esteem movement enhanced intra-familial security and support• 1990s trend of increased federal spending on child services (libraries, schools, sports)• Diversity of interests• Multiplicity of skills

Economy and Skills:• Economic slowdown decreased faith in traditional business models• Inflated college tuition and housing costs higher debt• Most highly educated generation in history

The tethered self:“Always-on/always-on-you”

- Sherry Turkle, MIT

80% of millennials sleep with their cell phone next to the bed.- PEW Research Center

Defining CharacteristicsBorn between the 1980s and the 2000s

• Digital natives

• Live and work by a communication imperative

• Hyper-connected: highly literate across global platforms and

networks

– Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YikYak, WhatsApp,

Tumblr, Snapchat, Skype…

• Freelancers

• Cognitively flexible

91% of Millennials

expect to stay in a job for less than 3 years… This means they will

have 15-20 jobs over the course of

their lives.

- The Future Workplace

Additional Characteristics• Renegades: hackers and appropriators

• Autodidacts

– User-friendly software

– Democratically dispersed information networks and connectivity

hubs

– Renaissance men (and women): multifarious interests and

aptitudes

• Desire purpose and meaning

What Makes Them Great?

• Irreverence for “just because” logic– Critical of path-dependent protocols and locked-in

technologies– Seek out what isn’t working and try to make it better

• Search for the “why” • Optimistically view the freelance work culture• Embrace difference and diversity• Seek out inclusive work environments

What Makes Them Essential(to us and to our businesses)

• Cognitive jugglers – they thrive amongst multiplicity• Innovation• Networked

connectivity

MILLENNIAL DEFINITIONSDiversityInclusion

New Connotations, New Values(According to a report by Deloitte and the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative)

DIVERSITY is…The integration of myriad backgrounds,

voices, and histories into a cohesive working team.

• Diverse teams mobilize their heterogeneous assets and personality

types to overcome obstacles and achieve ever-expanding business goals.

INCLUSION is…The support for a participatory work

environment in which all voices are valued and heard.

• Inclusive leadership is transparent, open, and receptive.

Whereas baby boomers and gen-Xers view diversity and inclusion as moral and legal imperatives, millennials view the two concepts as essential and productive business tools.

Harnessing Millennial Potential

I. How they function in the workplace

II. How to cultivate an environment in which they will thrive

How Millennials WorkA. Appropriation and Co-Construction

They are looking to improve upon what already exists, not simply work along and within the predetermined path.

THE VALUE: Circumvent groupthink mentality and foster beneficial innovation.

How to accommodate this:

– Ask your team: What is working? What is not? What can be done to maximize efficiency?

– Cut out rigid office hours and severe dress codes.– Encourage productive suggestions and respectful critiques.– Seek out employee feedback regularly and often through open

dialogues, anonymous polls, and interactive discussions.

How Millennials Work

B. Profound and Meaningful EngagementIt is not enough for them to merely clock their hours and pay their bills—they want to feel connected to their work in a way that transcends fiscal security.

THE VALUE: A Gallup study has found the cost of disengaged employees to reach up to $350 billion per year in lost productivity.

How to accommodate this:• Tell them why their presence and output is important.• Explain the company’s overarching significance and purpose.• Reiterate each team member’s role in the overarching “machine” on a daily

basis.

• 1, 5, and 10 year employee goal-setting initiatives- Business, health, fitness, and personal

• Sends employees to annual Landmark Forum

• The organization’s foundational question: “How do we move toward more direct feedback?”

How Millennials WorkC. VocalizationMillennials grew up in a culture of encouragement—they are acutely aware of their own voices and expect others to receptively listen to them.

THE VALUE: Managers who support rather than constrain employees cater to their entrepreneurial spirit and ensure that they feel valued.

How to accommodate this:• Avoid groupthink mentality by championing the best idea, not the loudest or the

most well-established.• Encourage anyone, regardless of seniority, to pitch new concepts.• Actively seek out the perspectives and responses of all team members.• Foster a safe and accepting company ethos wherein innovative ideas are desired

and rewarded.

Intrapreneurship

Innovations that have resulted:

• Gmail• Google News• Google shuttle buses

How Millennials WorkD. Immediate, Modern, Streamlined TechnologyiPhones and MacBooks reign supreme; the Cloud exists in the sky as well as in devices.

THE VALUE: Engage millennials in reverse mentoring positions. Such initiatives effectively channel the millennial skillset and facilitate collaboration between team members and across business partners.

How to accommodate this:• Update your business software. Millennials want user-friendly, up-to-date software in keeping with the

technologies and apps that they regularly and confidently use.• Employ cloud services wherever possible to integrate and streamline industry-specific technology. Such

services give companies direct access to consumer data and enable instantaneous action-response.

• Cloud cost flexibility is a key benefit drawing companies • Etsy: online marketplace for handmade goods that brings

buyers and sellers together and provides buyers with recommendations

• Via its cloud-based infrastructure, Etsy is able to cost-effectively analyze data from its one billion monthly views and then use the data to formulate product recommendations

tap into customer behaviorcollate and analyze data to make predictions

How Millennials WorkE. Collaboration, Crowdsourcing, and NetworkingThe burgeoning freelance culture doesn’t intimidate millennials—they have grown up connected, capable of accessing multiple nodes of information and connection.

THE VALUE: Increased efficiency of communication among team members.

How to accommodate this:• Set up a networked communicative infrastructure between

employees.• Encourage employees to seek out and maintain loose affiliations

across varied industries and locations. Renegade collaboration supports innovation.

Millennial-Born Businesses

The Millennial Business Model• Mobile device-centric

– Snapchat, Instagram• Graphical communication

– Newly pictorial lexicon—an emerging cross-cultural language

– Fast facts

The Millennial Business Model • Targeted advertising• Next-to-nothing promotional costs • Blurred line between production and consumption—the

users are the creators• Outsourcing and peer-to-peer services (Airbnb, Lyft)

Recent proposal: customer-driven delivery services

• Shoppers shippers• Customers receive bill discounts to cover transportation costs• Servicing in metro areas• Customers sign up with their address and Walmart figures

out the packages that drivers can drop off on their way home

“What’s your go-to flavour of juice?!”

Empowering the customer

Food bloggers and customers post the so-called “obligatory Insta”

#diditfortheinsta#foodporn#nom

Free Advertising

Millennial Business Values• Culture of sharing: back-and-forth transmission of media texts

• On-demand service

• Immediacy

• Responsiveness to user preferences and actions

• Flexibility

• Social purpose—what does your company do outside of its fiscal

imperatives?

Responsiveness to the User on-demand instantaneous

Millennials Respond to Idea Brands

- millennialmarketing.com

Corporate Social Responsibility

How Businesses Need to Change

1. Abolish the 9-to-5 workday:

• Team members are perpetually tuned in via laptops and mobile devices

• Millennials engage in cross-modal tasks through various platforms and on various timelines

• The nature of millennial work cannot be plotted on a traditional timesheet

2. Remodel work spaces:

• Create transparent office walls; swap cubicles for open-space collectives; foster group discussions within large rooms to encourage collaborative dialogue

How Businesses Need to Change

Aritzia’s Communal Kitchen

Google’s Flexible Workspace

3. Let Millennial Voices Be Heard:

• Millennials have ideas—good ones—and these ideas deserve attention• Check in with your team: ask for

suggestions, encourage interventions, and seek out the best idea from wherever it may emerge

How Businesses Need to Change

4. Cultivate a philanthropic company ethos:

• Millennials have a higher respect for and engagement with companies that give back to their communities

• Companies must pursue their fiscal goals while still focusing on and improving their overarching social impacts

• WHY? The search for purpose and meaning

How Businesses Need to Change

• Millennials are not “the worst generation”—they are just different

• Many of the millennial traits we criticize can be recast as valuable:– Entitled Assertive– Hacker ethos Creative approach– Disrespectful Innovative– Lazy Efficient– Digitally brain-washed Technologically adept

• To productively engage millennials in the workplace we must be receptive to their divergent values and approaches

What to Remember