Spotlight Online for College Employment and Recruiting Professionals, October 15, 2009 

Ron Alsop sees the Millennials as a fascinating, complex generation. On one hand Alsop says they clearly are the most educated, most technology savvy generation ever. But, he also notes that Millennials tend to be coddled by their helicopter parents and consequently don’t demonstrate the independence and leadership that many employers expect.

“While they crave success and compete fiercely to land a spot in the very best colleges and companies, they also can be very generous and have a passion for making the world a better place,” adds Alsop, author of The Trophy Kids Grow Up: How the Millennial Generation Is Shaking Up the Workplace and former reporter and editor for The Wall Street Journal. “But above all, the Millennial generation is considered overly demanding and unrealistic in its expectations.”

In his book, Alsop writes that the overriding perception of Millennials is that they are a generation with great—and sometimes outlandish—expectations and feel an unusually strong sense of entitlement.  

How does this translate into the workplace? Alsop says that many Millennials want a meritocracy that allows them to get ahead as fast as their accomplishments allow. But, some managers believe they are far too impatient.

“In particular, [some managers] resent Millennials for expecting overnight advancement from their entry-level jobs,” he explains.

“They want to be CEO tomorrow,” is a common refrain from frustrated corporate recruiters, who wonder whatever happened to new hires paying their dues, Alsop continues.

Other characteristics of Millennials in terms of their careers include that they:

• Believe in developing their portfolio of skills and having lots of different experiences. That often leads to frequent job hopping, at least when the economy is strong and jobs are plentiful.
• Want greater work-life balance. Given technology and the ability to work remotely, their ideal is to work wherever and whenever they want, as long as they get the job done satisfactorily and on time. That may mean leaving the office in the early afternoon to work out at the gym and finishing the project at home on the laptop at midnight.

Alsop says that Millennials are starting to make companies rethink rigid workplace rules and offer more flexibility, such as the opportunity to work from home some days. They also are applying their technology skills in ways that may lead to greater efficiency and more creativity.

“Because they tend to be altruistic, some Millennials are encouraging employers to offer them the opportunity to do volunteer work in their local communities or even take sabbaticals to apply their skills to problems in poor, developing countries,” he notes.

On the other hand, employers are finding Millennials quite a handful because of their great expectations. Alsop reports clashes with the older generations—Gen X and Baby Boomers—who find Millennials to be overly demanding and often unwilling to do routine, entry-level work.

“There also are generational conflicts over the need for face time, the Millennials’ use of iPods and other personal technologies in the office, and their different communication styles, such as texting rather than talking face to face,” he says.

Employers have had to adjust from the ways in which they engaged and managed members of previous generations to engaging and managing Millennials by giving much more frequent feedback and direction to Millennials, who tend to need lots of positive reinforcement and very specific checklists for completing assignments.

“Millennials want to know exactly what is expected of them on a project, as well as exactly what they have to do to get promoted,” Alsop says. “They often are uncomfortable dealing with ambiguous situations that require independent thinking and therefore need a lot of hand-holding.”

In his book, Alsop details two effective ways organizations handle Millennials:

• Some companies see value in small acts of kindness. At Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., even very busy managers fire off congratulatory e-mail messages when young financial representatives return from a fruitful sales call, telling them “Good job!” Those particular words may be quite effective because they’re reminiscent of childhood praise from parents and coaches.
• Many companies are spending more time trying to wean Millennials from their need for detailed directions and teach them to deal better with the gray areas of life. At Boston Consulting Group Inc., the management consultants must possess an aptitude for dealing with ambiguity and creating order from scattered information. But the firm finds that some Millennials require more than the usual training and structure to learn to handle ambiguity. In training programs conducted before they’re sitting across from a client, young consultants must grapple with simulated management problems to become more comfortable working without a “paint-by-numbers” manual. They learn to develop hypotheses and break chaotic problems into more manageable units.

A critical component to effectively managing the current generation of employees is retaining them. Alsop says employers can retain Millennials by making them feel that their work is important and telling them that the company will help them develop their skills and career potential. They want to build their skills through mentoring, training, and career development programs, Alsop adds, and have the opportunity to switch jobs within their company and to get international assignments.

“This generation isn't loyal to any one company and is likely to work for many employers,” he says. “But Millennials will be more apt to stay with an employer if they can see why their sometimes seemingly mundane job is important to the company's success.