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Generation y in the workplace essay
Generation y in the workplace essay
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The article I found for this assignment is Workplace Engagement and Generational Differences in Values by Nancy M. Schullery it was published in Business Communication Quarterly. The Article focuses on the difference in work place engagement and communication at the generational level and how similar it is to interaction inside the classroom. The article provided a survey of the literature on workplace engagement, and detailed how the values of the newest generation in the workforce, the Millennials, are different from previous generations. "These value differences may diminish the effectiveness of employers’ efforts to increase engagement, similar to the way differing values also may reduce our own effectiveness in the classroom"(Schullery,
In the article “Why Your Office Needs More Bratty Millennials”, the author Emily Matchar expresses a variety of reasons why the new generation in the workforce (millennials) needs to have their voices heard. She uses different terms to discuss this generation of workers, including Generation Y, another common name for millennials. Matchar’s exposition of why millennials are changing the workplace is broken down into specific points. She references the declining job market and why, due to circumstance, it is hard for millennials to get jobs as it is. Moreover, millennials are now pushing for a “customizable” workplace, such as being able to set their own hours.
The millennial generation is made up of people that were born from 1978-1999. People from older generations say the millennial generation people are growing up being unprepared for the real world. In an article titled “The Tethered Generation” written by Kathryn Tyler she talks about why the millennial generation is so different than any other generation. She also explains how they depend heavily on their parents well into adulthood. In this article Tyler allows the reader to see why HR professionals are worried about the millennial generation entering their work force. Using Toulmin’s schema the reader can judge the effectiveness of Tyler’s essay to the audience, and this schema is used to persuade the audience to
Stereotyped in popular media as whining, self-absorbed, narcissistic, overindulged and tech-addled, the Millennial generation - born 1980 through 2000 - is generally considered to be the epitome of spoiled unreasonableness. Now that Millennials are making strides in the workplace, it is evident that those stereotypes are based more on anecdotes rather than reality. In fact it now appears that they very much echo their Boomer parents, which is why they are often referred to as Echo Boomers. Simply put, where Boomers have an optimistic outlook of the world, Millennials are hopeful; where Boomer work ethic is driven, Millennials are determined; where Boomers have a love / hate relationship with authority, Millennials treat authority with politeness; where Boomers believe in leadership by consensus, Millennials believe in leadership by pulling together; and where personal gratification is the impetus for Boomer relationships, Millennials have no personal motivation for relationships which are inclusive and with no boundaries (Zemke, Raines & Filipczak, 2013).
Millennials are rumored to be “self-centered, unmotivated, disrespectful, and disloyal, contributing to widespread concern about how communication with millennials will affect organizations and how they will develop relationships with other organizational members” (Karen Myers 225). According to Sharon DeVaney, the millennial generation “were born between 1980 and 2000” (11) and that “The millennial generation is larger than the 46 million who are in Generation X and the millennials are almost equal in size to the 76.4 million in the baby boomer generation” (12) to this day.
The main themes addressed in this article are the generational changes within the workforce, the advancements in the economy that are affecting the workplaces and the changes in the work ethic of employees.
With the current change in demographics throughout the workforce, organizations are feeling the effects of a larger percentage of baby boomers retiring and a large percentage of millennial new entrants. The words used to describe millennial employees, “spoiled, trophy kids, ambitious”, seem to be as everlasting as the constructive and negative perspectives attached to them. Many can debate on the entitlement of these employees within an organization, how these employees can be groomed and managed to better fit the organization, the positive and negative attributes they bring into the workplace, and how the preceding can benefit or derail the effectiveness of an organization. Nonetheless, a harder debate, comes about in denying that organizations must adjust to and integrate these employees into the workforce.
Workers are often pitted against each other in the work place as a form of competition. One division that is commonly seen is gender and race, but there is also a divide concerning age that isn’t discussed as frequently. Baby Boomers are those who was born between 1946-1964, when WWII soldiers came back home, settled down and started the “Baby Boom”. While Millennials are those born around 1981-2000, and have a similar population size as Baby Boomers. In the workplace, Millennials are categorized as being bad workers due to how they were raised in sheltered lifestyles and require a different environment than the previous generation, but that is not accurate. Even though the two generations view work different, sometimes to the point of conflict,
Smola, Karen Wey, and Charlotte D. Sutton. "Generational Difference: Revisiting Generational Work Values for the New Millennium." Journal of Organizational Behavior 23 (2002): 363-82. JSTOR. Web. 28 Mar. 2012. .
The employee engagement has become a hot topic of discussion in the corporate world. There is no single accepted definition of engagement or recognised approach for measuring or raising it. HRM Practitioners have involved in quite a lot of study to understand employee engagement and its impact on the performance of the organisation. According to them, employee engagement is a level of commitment and involvement of employees towards their organisation and its value. An engaged employee works with his/her colleagues to improve their productivity within their job, for the ultimate benefit of the organisation.
Employee engagement, a term devised by Gallup research group, is viewed as an important management tool for any company who wants to be an effective and productive organization. Researches have shown that employee can contribute positively to the organization vision and goal when a company engage them effectively. The employee will also feel more passionate about their work and have a sense of belonging.
Klobucher, T 2011, Characteristics of Generation 2020: Generations at Work, The Great Workplace Revolution, accessed 11 November 2013, http://www.thegreatworkplacerevolution.com/characteristics-of-generation-2020-generations-at-work/
Robbins (2013) recognizes that baby boomers have an enormous hard-working attitude with a definitive want to characterize themselves through their expert achievements. Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964 value their achievement, ambition, loyalty to career and dislike to authority in competitive workplace (Robbins and Judge, 2017). Gen Xers, born between 1965 and 1977, who are independent-minded like work-life balance, team-oriented, loyalty to relationship and dislike of rules. The generation born between 1978 and later, known as Millennials value flexible hours, teamwork and collaborative culture, career development, loyalty to both self and relationships with employers and dislike the formality of regular meetings if there
Zemke, Ron. (2013). Generations at Work: Managing the Clash of Boomers, Gen Xers & Gen Yers in the workplace. Edition #2.
Describe and explain how this factor can potentially have a positive influence on workplace relationships
The buzzword in the global HR arena these days is ‘employee engagement’. Its impact has become so immense that is has become somewhat indispensible in the realm of the business world where operational efficiency and profit earning are the sole endeavour of any company. The questions are often asked regarding the utility of the employee engagement policies that are adopted by the companies especially in this world of cutthroat competition. These policies have been extremely useful one hand for the organisations; on the other hand they have been a failed drastically as effective HR and internal communications function in lot of companies.