Three Reasons You Need To Adopt A Millennial Mindset Regardless Of Your Age

With more generations now working side by side at the office, it’s become common for older employees to experience a somewhat uncomfortable reality: answering to a younger boss.

One third of US workers say their boss is younger than they are – and for fifteen percent that’s by at least ten years – according to a recent study done by CareerBuilder, which surveyed more than 6,000 people.

“It’s not uncommon to see 30-year-olds managing 50-year-olds,” saidRosemary Haefner, Vice President of Human Resources at CareerBuilder.

It’s been well documented that this dynamic can lead to workplace tension, a phenomenon I discussed in a recent blog post.

But a key way to prevent that generational tension was highlighted by a quiz created by the Pew Research Center. The quiz, called “How Millennial Are You?” asks 14 questions to determine whether respondents, regardless of age, have what I call a Millennial Mindset, meaning just because you may be a Digital Immigrant (born after 1977) you need to become a Digital Native in your thinking.    

And considering the power of millennial thinking in avoiding workplace tension got me thinking about other ways tapping into the Millennial psyche is crucial to our careers.  Here are three:

1. Millennials are not only our current and future employees (and bosses) but they are our current and future customers.  Understanding their personal views will only help us thrive in our businesses.
2. Millennials will be roughly 50% of the USA workforce in 2020 and 75% of the global workforce by 2030. The sheer size of this demographic segment will force organizations to re-think many of their policies and practices such as delivery of training & development, (think mobile and social) vacation time (unlimited and a focus on performance not face time in the office) and commitment to global job rotations early in one’s career.
3. Millennial preferences using the latest social technologies and innovation platforms to communicate and collaborate on-the-job.. For example one of the findings of the Future Workplace Multiple Generations @ Work Survey of 1,189 knowledge workers and 150 managers found that Millennials value the opportunity to share their ideas and creativity at work. In fact, the ability of an employer to provide on-going opportunities to share openly and collaborate came up as the fourth most frequently mentioned criteria for seeking a best of breed employer after; workplace flexibility, compensation and career progression.

If you take Pew’s quiz, you may be surprised where you rank. During a recent presentation, I told my audience that whoever scored higher than my score of 84 could receive a free copy of my book, The 2020 Workplace. To my surprise I gave away about 5 books that day, all to bona fide Baby Boomers!

So let’s see where you fit. According to Pew quiz, if you want adopt a  Millennial Mindset, here are some areas to consider:

Play social games on the Internet or on your mobile device, instead of watching television. Forty-three percent of Millennials don’t watch even an hour of television each day, according to Pew’s study, because they prefer these activities.

Build “social” into your life.  Millennials often take to the keypad to type out texts to their buddies, Facebook status updates to their extended friend groups, and tweets to the entire Internet. The average Millennial sends around 20 texts per day, while 41% of adults overall don’t send text messages at all, Pew found.

Re-think “HOW” you communicate with friends, family and colleagues.  Often this means dumping your Landline (a real Millennial may not even know what this refers to)  and relying solely on a smartphone. Forty-one percent of Millenials have abandoned landlines in favor of keeping just a mobile phone. (Many of them even sleep with them.) And the Google office in New York City has actually done away with desk phones in each cubicle admitting most of their employees live on their mobile phones.

Be open to change and accepting of diversity. To be a millennial, you can’t be too right or left – but somewhere in the middle. Skin color, religion and personal preferences just aren’t that important to Millennials. In their views about interracial dating, Pew’s report says, “Millennials are the most open to change of any generations.” To be a millennial, ditch your prejudices.

Be constantly open to new career opportunities. According to Future Workplace Multi-Generation Survey of 1189 knowledge workers, Millennials, 91% of Millennials expect to stay in a job for less than three years, according to the Future Workplace “Multiple Generations @ Work” survey of 1,189 employees and 150 managers. This compares with the most recent data the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which reports that the median time workers are with their current employer is 4.6 years.

All of us need to adopt a Millennial mindset, regardless of when we were born. Why? In order to thrive in the workplace of the future we need to be agile, digitally literate, use the latest social technologies and above all, be open to people of all cultures, since our workforce of the future will be increasingly multi-cultural, age diverse and global.

(Jeanne Meister, the author is officially a Baby Boomer, acts like Generation X, but secretly wants to be a Millennial. Her 24year-old daughter took the quiz and scored  “78” 6 points below her Baby Boomer MOM, who scored ”84” without any tattoos or body piercings.)

So readers, can you exhibit a Millennial mindset or do you find it a struggle? If you do, has it helped you at work? Let’s be social and share!

Jeanne Meister

A millennial mindset will determine the future of businesses

SAMIR DHIR

Being ‘millennial’ may be more a way of life than just a buzzword

The term millennials is a misnomer. The general tendency to think of millennials as teenagers is flawed as millennials are born after 1980.

A majority of the millennial customers with purchasing power have exploded and brought to the market an entirely new set of expectations. With their dependence on social media to get and share information and flair for technology, they are redefining the paradigms for every industry.

Their consumption of services is led by peer reviews on social networks, advice from friends groups on instant messaging (IM) platforms and smartphone apps. If they do not like a particular service or product, they will immediately share their experiences over social, IM platforms using their smartphones.

Likewise, they can also become endorsers for a brand if engaged in the right way.

Businesses need to learn and transform to address the needs of these future world citizens lest the ‘mobile-first generation’ finds them conventional, non-engaging and static.

Transformations

Take, for instance, the way news is consumed by this generation in the digital age. The influx of smartphones and tablets have meant people now watch news on the go and not wait to reach home and switch on the television. Another industry which has been transforming itself in line with the millennials’ expectations is the banking sector.

Banks are working hard to provide the same level of services and experience on their mobile site as their physical branch. They do not expect these young professionals to actually visit their home branch often. These traits should provide insights into how companies or marketers should respond and communicate to them. Millennials seek instant gratification and recognition and this is something recruiters too need to keep in mind during campus and lateral hires for millennials. They are willing to give their loyalty to someone who can fulfill their quest for new challenges. They show meta cultural ease i.e., they are comfortable with people from different backgrounds, culture and ethnicity, want to be able to give back through their work and have a good network of friends at work — an average of 220 plus friends.

Businesses need to integrate these millennial traits in their outreach strategies. One way of doing this would be to recognise, reward and encourage these traits. Across sectors and verticals, companies need to learn from millennials and then formulate their marketing strategies accordingly.

Business landscape

Startups like Flipkart and Ola Cabs with a millennial attitude are constantly forcing change in the market. These start-ups are creating new e-tailing and aggregation business models challenging the way conventional businesses have engaged and delivered their offerings. What sets these start-ups apart is the agility and entrepreneurial spirit.

Agility gives them the power to challenge the large corporates, grow faster than the industry, innovate and disrupt the conventional way of doing things. Large traditional companies engaged in large format retail, consumer durables and taxi services are losing market share and customer imagination as they could not quickly adapt to the changing demands of the millennial customers.

Also, it has been our experience that individuals that behave like entrepreneurs within a company are the star performers who come up with original ideas and continuously innovate.

IT services and product companies now not just recognise but also reward their millennial employees for innovation, in terms of funding and implementing these ideas for their customers. All this again brings to the fore that we need to adopt a millennial mindset, regardless of when we were born.

The new market entrants are rapidly changing consumer preferences. Therefore, in order to remain competitive and retain customers, we must be able to fully leverage the potential of social media. Therefore, being ‘millennial’ may be more a way of life rather than just a buzzword.

The writer is EVP and Head of India Operations, Virtusa, an IT services company