WHAT IS A MILLENNIAL ANYWAY?
There are a lot of misconceptions about what it means to be a millennial, according to Karen Myers, a professor of organizational communication at the University of California.
“Colloquially, a lot of people still think that they are part of the millennial generation, but the experts agree that there have been a lot of change in the generations and that the people that are now in college are more generation Z,” Myers said.
Although there is no official cut-off for the millennial generation or generation Y, there is a general consensus that generation Z began in the mid-1990s. Statistics Canada says gen Z started in 1993.
Myers said she believes gen Z differs in many ways from the previous generation of millennials.
“Generation Z are much more cautious and they are very skeptical and tend to not be risk takers at all,” she said. “They were brought up in a lot of the bad, negative economy.”
Unlike previous generations, there is a much smaller age gap, which has led to gen Z often being branded as millennials;
and that brand is not always pretty.
BIG BUSINESS’ BEEF WITH MILLENNIALS
Millennials have come under a lot of criticism by business professionals, according to Myers.
The entire generation has become associated with the image of a lazy, entitled 20-something who is more concerned with finding personal fulfillment than meeting deadlines at the office, she said.
Myers said she believes many of these concerns stem from the large amount of millennials entering the workforce.
“Everyone brings these sorts of stereotypes into the workplace,” Myers said. “Millennials are a very large group and because there are so many of them, they get a lot more attention.”
Millennials make up 27 per cent of Canada’s population, according to Statistics Canada.
Myers said business owners and managers say millennial ideals stray from their own.
“Some of the key differences [employers] say are that they are focused on themselves and they have been doted on by their parents, which is true,” she said. “They may not be as resourceful as young workers from previous generations.”
Waleed Adebayo, a Carleton economics student and part of the millennial generation, said he does not see these stereotypes as a bad thing, especially the often-touted idea that millennials are self-absorbed.
“Narcissism is really just a lot of self-love instead of self-hate,” he said. “People get pissed off when I talk about myself. My mom said it’s going to bite me in the ass some day.”
Myers said she found in her studies stereotypical millennial workplace behaviours can rub some employers the wrong way.
“Millennials need to learn about other generations’ values,” she said. “They [older generations] don’t want to be treated like the younger person’s best friend.”
Whether the millennials’ attitudes have a place in corporate North America, Myers is not so sure.
“It’s a matter of adaptation rather than if they have a place,” she said. “We all need to just learn to adapt to each other.”
Other studies have disagreed with these assumptions about millennials. A 2015 IBM Institute for Business Value study claimed millennial stereotypes might be unfairly associated with their generation.
Their report showed that only 22 per cent of millennials were likely to say their goals at work were “fulfillment” or “changing the world” versus 24 per cent of baby boomers who said the same thing.
The study found millennials also shared many aspirations with older generations such as being able to climb the corporate ladder and staying competitive in the workplace.
The Slippery Slope of Stereotypes
Jeff Ousborne, an English professor at Suffolk University, said it is impossible to understand different generations with blanket statements about their values.
“We use these generational stereotypes as a sort of shorthand,” he said. “You have to be careful when labelling large swathes of people.”
He said the development of stereotypes has much more to do with how generations perceive each other than how each generation actually behaves.
He used the example of an article he found in a 1979 issue of the Wall Street Journal to explain how older generations have always perceived younger generations in negative ways.
“[The article] was criticizing the kids in the workforce because they were entitled, they weren’t independent,” he said. “These are the sorts of things that older people always say about young people.”
Molly Roome, a child studies student at Carleton and part of the millennial generation, said she can recall many times when her parents would come into her room and immediately assume she was using her laptop to check Facebook instead of doing something productive.
“My parents [would] come in my room and be like, ‘what are you doing?’” Roome said. “I was actually working on an assignment.”
Ousborne said he believes stereotypes often tell far more about the people who are imposing them on others than the stereotyped group.
“I’ll admit I’m as bad as you, I’m constantly on my phone,” he said. “I’m not like, ‘you horrible millennials with your smartphones.’ No, it’s just a universal thing.”
He said it can be even more telling of older people’s fears of the future than of their dislike of young people.
“It makes me angry when I hear older people [say] kids today are not prepared for the world, and the irony of that is the world is far more competitive now,” he said. “They grew up in the cradle of post-war prosperity; they faced little global competition.”
According to the New Boom article series by National Public Radio, millennials are one of the most educated generations, but are also the most underemployed.
In Canada, the unemployment rate has risen to 14.5 per
cent for people under 24, according to Statistics Canada. Of those who are employed, most are working in low-paying service jobs or contract work.
Ousborne said many young people in our current economy have to move laterally in their career path, which involves changing jobs and doing more freelance work. These movements often label millennials as being disloyal and unmotivated to climb the ranks.
“Loyalty goes both ways,” he said. “Job security now does not mean what it did 40 or 50 years ago.”
Ousborne said at the end of the day, when he looks at his students, he does not see a room full of millennials and gen Z kids. He said he sees potential.
“So now when I look at my students, for example, the world they are going on into is global and competitive in ways that are unfathomable,” he said.
The one stereotype that Ousborne said rings true for him is that older people just don’t understand kids today, and that it would do them some good to listen once in a while.
