Employee X is a confident negotiator and powerful decision maker, while Employee Y has great social skills and an eye for detail. The difference between them? If the latest research is to be believed, about 20 years.
It seems that so-called Generation Y, those born roughly between 1980 and 2000, are decidedly lacking in many of the qualities that brought career success to their Generation X predecessors.
“Our research shows that Generation Y are very dutiful employees, very eager to please. But they’re also less sure of themselves, more self-critical, mistrustful and more self-conscious than previous generations,” says Geoff Trickey of Psychological Consultancy Limited (PCL).
“The research was taken from 18,000 staff and it’s interesting to see how the difference between X and Y really is pronounced. There were differences between Generation Xs and Baby Boomers, for example, but these were almost insignificant in comparison to the differences between the Xs and the Ys.”
PCL’s findings showed the Ys to be reluctant to make independent decisions, assume responsibility or confront the status quo. “In a number of ways, they do appear less mature than previous generations as they enter the workforce,” says Trickey.
This could sound all too familiar to the 60s/70s-born Generation X managers who may well have been exasperated by their younger colleagues for some time. But, before older staff begin crowing over their superior employability, they’d better get acquainted with their own generational issues. According to PCL, Generation X seems to have taken the power-suited 80s altogether too seriously and is guilty of chasing success at the expense of human relationships.
“Older generations can be too independent minded and less concerned about pleasing others all the time,” confirms Trickey. “In extreme cases they will be task focused and have a waning interest in other people.”
So while older staff might scorn the lovable deference of characters such as Ross from Friends, it’s certainly possible that their JR from Dallas approach causes an equal number of problems — albeit of a different nature.
On a more upbeat note, the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) has commissioned research into the sunnier side of age-group employment characteristics, and its findings reveal younger staff to be cause-committed, dedicated to their careers and focused on long-term goals.
“Generation Y has been dismissed as self-centred, yet the evidence shows that this is not the case,” explains Ian Andrew, regional manager at the CMI. Overall there is a strong desire to develop at work and enjoy the job, with inability to progress a strong negative for them. Our findings show them to be driven by ethics and a sense of purpose, prepared to work long hours if need be, with a focus on long-term career planning.”
Considering that the youth of today are often characterised as the products of helicopter parents, a nanny state and general educational hand-holding, these results are perhaps surprising, revealing them to be as career focused as older generations. What’s more, they come with the added bonus of placing ethics above success, and so offer companies prepared to meet their moral standards true loyalty and motivated labour.
“A lot of sweeping generalisations are made about age,” says Chris MacEwan, a 24-year-old graduate manager at Sky. “I would disagree that people from my generation are not organised. For the most part people my age who I work with have been through university or similar, and you have to be organised to deal with that.”
Perhaps it’s just a case of older staff becoming increasingly narrowminded about how things should be done — and perhaps the younger working style isn’t as inefficient as it first seems.
“Ys are natural co-ordinators,” confirms Tamara Erickson, author of What’s Next, Gen X? “From the Y’s perspective, imagine how they feel when they ask their boss a question, only to be told that he will bring it up in the next management team meeting that is scheduled in two weeks’ time! The Ys conclude that older generations are highly inefficient, since they, of course, would text or post the question and get an immediate response.”
So maybe the message for all staff is to place less emphasis on negative, age-related stereotypes and instead focus on the positives that each generation can bring. In the case of older and wiser workers, this may mean learning a little tolerance when it comes to dealing with less experienced colleagues. After all, not only does the next generation bring a rush of much needed optimism and enthusiasm to the workplace, it might remind the jaded elders that they were young once too.
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