Читать книгу FLEX - Rick Grimaldi - Страница 11

Recently, millennials surpassed Gen Xers as the largest generation of workers.⁵ And that trend has plenty of critical implications as well. Just as America is experiencing a widening gap between whites and non-whites, so, too, is it struggling with a schism between the experience of older Americans and millennials.

Millennials are early adopters of technology. Unlike their older peers, they've grown up with the internet in a connected society replete with social media and other online solutions oriented platforms. Technology solutions are intuitive for them.

At first glance, it might seem millennials have a societal advantage due to their facility with technology compared to older generations. But, although they may find it easier to navigate the latest app or trending technology, they are also less at ease with real-time communication than older Americans. This is true in the workplace as well. In other words, even as they are more connected, they are also more disconnected.

Millennials are struggling in other ways, too. The American Dream they've watched their parents embrace is fading from view. It seems unattainable for millennials as they struggle under the burden of historic loan debt, soaring health care costs, and flattened wages, forcing many to live at home well into their 30s.

Sets of couples are sharing tiny apartments in large urban cities with runaway housing costs and forgoing consumer purchases such as new cars that previous generations took for granted as a normal perk of life after college. Millennials are realizing that, for the first time in history, they are unlikely to do as well as their parents have done.

Will those resentments play out in unforeseen ways as they ultimately arrive in the C suite and must allocate financial resources for older generations? If not millennials, who will drive the economic engine as baby boomers retire and reduce spending?

Ultimately, it's in the workplace (as well as society at large) where these generational trends often work at cross-purposes when workers' values and communication styles conflict. Successful companies will be those who can flex and find creative ways to harness the diverse strengths of their employees in service of the company's goals.