topics include Employer Branding, Gen Y, Peer Group Views
Along with many other organisations, Peer Group has an avid interest in the effects and implications of what is generally identified as ‘Generation Y', about which an enormous amount continues to be written and many thoughts and suggestions expounded, typically focusing on their known and anticipated behaviours, their attitudes and the identified implications of having them in the workplace over the next 15 or so years.
(NB: we favour a broader focus with our research and so tend to look more at generation trends rather than placing such emphasis on Generation Y. Generation trends are not consistent across the globe which in itself has implications on how recruitment, retention, talent management etc are managed by organisations operating globally.)
As a mother of Gen Y offspring however, and thus able to witness the phenomenon (and its friends) at close hand, I should like to put a contentious two-penny'th into the debating pot here.
‘Generation Y', a subject which currently prompts so much debate on how organisations must go about managing their potential and existing workforces will, I predict, have a very limited lifespan. Why? Because the reality is that the behaviours it brings are largely untenable in a competitive commercial environment where delivery of ever reduced profits against challenging time frames and cost restrictions necessarily have a bearing on how the job needs to be done (and who needs to do it); where collaborative team-work, co-operation and contribution for the common good are pre-requisites and where, increasingly, rather than decreasingly, knowledge and experience are valuable differentiators. And why not roll in the effects of a biting recession too....
But beyond that, consider the following, which will possibly have much more of an influence on the inevitable fizzling out of Gen Y and its less desirable character traits:
As soon as Gen Y start to produce Gen Z, I confidently predict that, once the initial horror around ‘What It Means To Have Children' has subsided, they will swiftly determine that enslaving themselves to someone else is not, as it never has been, on their own agenda all. They simply won't tolerate restrictions imposed on them by their offspring and they won't be anything like as keen to put them first as were their parents before them, the Baby Boomers. Why? Because their focus will still be on themselves. That is all they will have known. Their kids will need to fall into line.....and may even be expected to do as they are told.
Sounds good to me. But then - I am a baby boomer and an over-indulgent parent currently reaping the dubious rewards of over-indulging tomorrow's stars...
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