What is wrong with us old timers these days? We go to conferences where we make sure no one under age of 40 comes near the place, and we spend half our time bemoaning the lack of a “digital mindset” from our colleagues because we all have these world-class digital mindsets ourselves. And can someone please explain what the f*** a digital mindset actually is? And can someone explain why everyone blathers on about their company’s inability to change with the times, but never admit they don’t really want to change anything either…
But let’s be honest, we treat our beloved Millennials like some sort of obscure species whose members only communicate digitally with each other, like to wear these really big expensive headphones, drink far less than we did at their age, and no longer go to bad discos to find romance. Not to mention an unhealthy love of avocado toast that helps their quest for a purpose in life because of failed parenting strategies leaving them permanently depressed because of low self-esteem.
In addition, we’re now accusing them of lacking ambition and only caring about their next vacation. But how can we blame these poor folks from feeling like we stitched up the world before they came along… as most cannot come close to affording the cheapest shoebox in any half respectable neighborhood, the poor folks in the UK are going to get cut off from working in Europe soon, and the lost Millennial souls in the USA had to choose between two septuagenarians as their president, who hardly represent the emerging mindset of the digital youth (even though you do have to be impressed with the President’s twitter skills…).
So imagine the refreshing impact when HfS analyst Ollie O’Donoghue, a proud representative of the Millennial race when he’s not trying to annoy Amazon, piped up on LinkedIn with the following staunch defense of his species:
Click here to join Ollie’s LinkedIn discussion
The Bottom-Line: Love them or loathe them, Millennials are the Future
So to quote Ollie directly: “Entitlement goes both ways. It’s just previous generations got what they were entitled to. They worked hard, bought a house, paid a mortgage, got relative financial and social security. The reason so many Millennials are checking out of the economy is because they work hard and get, well, nothing. Home ownership is the stuff of legend, even job security is a thing from a bygone era – and something a lot of ‘future of work’ commentators are making worse.” So let’s use this opportunity to bring Millennials into our inane conversations about a future of work with less need for people, about our businesses being persistently disrupted by imaginary digital competitors, about blockchain’s emergence to destroy whatever we have left… because if we don’t, we’ll have a big hole left in our corporate legacies that we’ll struggle to fill, as all the talent will be checked out on the beach dreaming of their next avocado latte.
Posted in : HR Strategy
