There is a saying that I used to hear older business professionals tell us younger workers who expressed our youthful frustrations about how the organization functioned.

They became those terrible three words that we hated to hear: Just Keep Living.

As they promised then, with time, we would find the tables reversed and we would face our own generation gap when we became senior level managers managing younger workers. As I have facilitated management and leadership seminars over the years, I often laugh to myself at how right “those old managers” were decades ago.

Today, the generation gap is alive and well!

In seminars, business professionals frequently have told me that they find it difficult managing the youngest workers entering the workplace. This generation known as Generation Y (also Millennials) were born between 1980 and 2000. These older managers complain about the different work ethic and a sense of entitlement that they feel Gen Y workers bring to the workplace.

There are differences about work expectations among the four generations in the workplace. These differences require managers to adapt their approach if they want to motivate all of their staff members.

Whatever challenges Gen Y workers raise for older managers, they are a force in the workplace that cannot be dismissed or simply tolerated. Gen Y workers have replaced Baby Boomers as the largest percentage of the workforce.

Gen Y workers come to organizations with ambition and creativity.

A study by the market research agency, Intrepid, and the marketing agency, Mr Youth, recommends the following methods to engage Gen Y workers:

• Use open collaborative communication to engage them as much as possible. (Gen Y values a flatter organizational structure with two-way communication.)
• Encourage work sharing and consensus among employees (Gen Y values shared responsibility and cross training).
• Keep them continually engaged and challenged (“Just Needed a Change” is the most frequent reason why Gen Y workers change jobs–not salary.)
• Recognize and reward good ideas from wherever they originate in the organization. (Gen Y are not impressed with titles, seniority, and length of time in an organization.  Ideas that move the organization forward impress them.)
• Encourage the use of technology and innovative thinking. (Gen Y accept the democracy of the Internet where good ideas can come from anywhere.)

In addition to these specific principles for Millennials, use general good leadership practices to create a team environment where your Gen Y are valued collaborators with the rest of their inter-generational peers.

Moving forward, I firmly believe that the largest diversity challenges for organizations will not be gender, race, or national origin (younger people have less issues in these areas than older generations).

Instead, the larger diversity challenge will be due to age.

The challenge surrounding age diversity is more difficult because of the delayed retirements of older workers from the workforce due to the continuing effects of the Great Recession.

Like any generation in the workplace, Gen Y workers bring strengths and challenges to organizations. Organizations that learn how to leverage the ambition and creativity of Gen Y workers will discover an important asset for navigating the uncertain future.

If any older managers still need convincing of the ambition and creative power of Gen Y, they do not have to look any further than Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook. Facebook is the biggest social media platform on the planet. In the first quarter of 2018, it had 2.19 billion monthly active users. In 2020, Facebook reports 2.6 billion active users. Mark Zuckerberg has his detractors. Regardless of where anyone falls in that regard, however, no one can credibly deny the global changing impact of this Gen Y member.

For more insights on generational issues in the workplace see my earlier blog post, Understanding and Managing the Four Generations in the Workplace.