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IN THIS CHAPTER

❯❯ Introducing the generational timeline

❯❯ Examining shifts in today’s multigenerational workplace

❯❯ Meeting the Millennials: traits, insights, and subtleties among them

❯❯ Recognizing clash points

❯❯ Finding a lot to love about Millennials

If you felt the need to pick up this book, page through chapters, or scan a series of helpful lists, you must have a reason. You may love every Millennial you work with and want to learn more about them. You may scratch your head anytime a Millennial asks when he can move up the ladder. You may struggle to motivate a generation that wears headphones at work and longs to bond with you at happy hour over a local IPA. You may be a Millennial yourself who doesn’t understand your own generation. Whomever you are, we’re glad you’re here, because this whole “Millennial thing” isn’t made up, and we understand your interest to learn more.

It’s no secret that Millennials are winning the generational media popularity contest. In 2015 alone, approximately 44,000 articles featuring Millennials graced the digital newsstands, partly because they’re a massive generation, set to comprise 75 percent of the global workforce by 2025. This coverage, bordering on excessive, has given Millennials a pretty notorious PR problem, often slandered as lazy, narcissistic, entitled brats.

Once upon a recent decade marked by neon fashion and big hair, another young generation entered the work arena. They appeared apathetic, wore flannel, rocked out to Nirvana and Run DMC, and entered work determined to succeed and enforce balance. Bosses and colleagues welcomed them with (somewhat) open arms and chuckled with a profound sense of knowing: “Someday we’ll figure out these kids, but until then they’ll have to figure it out themselves.” Now these flannel-wearing kids are Gen X managers and leaders running organizations. The companies who welcomed them reaped the rewards. Others who hoped their few hires would magically turn into Baby Boomers are reeling. They missed out. Companies may face a similar fate if they look to the Millennial generation and wonder, “Do I have to pay attention to you? Do I have to change things just to meet your needs? Maybe we’ll wait for the next generation and skip these needy Millennials.” While we understand your thought process, fair reader, we know your plight if you gloss over the youngest generation making waves in the workplace.

This chapter will prove that the Millennial struggle is real – first, we’ll forecast the current and future generational demographic shifts and then introduce who the Millennial generation is and is not. You’ll discover the importance of not just knowing who Millennials are but why they are the way that they are. Next, we’ll pepper your palette with what happens when the next generation clashes with other generations at work before finishing the chapter with giving you a solid glimpse into the future.