The children of doting Baby Boomers and the younger siblings of jaded Generation Xers, Millennials are a generation that values the relationships in their lives.
By Andrea Losa – Hispanic Millennial
From a professional perspective, Gen Y tends to value collaborative bonds with fellow employees and a mentoring relationship with employers. As this generation rapidly continues to come of age and fill the professional ranks (estimated to account for 57% of the workforce by 2020), today’s employers are tasked with uncovering the ways in which they are shaping the workforce to accommodate their worldviews and their values. Generation Y is selective about job opportunities, seeking not only companies that are conscientious and community-minded but also bosses who are willing and able to mentor them.
Hispanic members of Generation Y still share many of the same attributes as their non-Hispanic cohorts, but their cultural perspective will certainly play a role in the kinds of bonds of they seek to form with employees and employers. Many Hispanic Millennials are accustomed to strong family bonds, including close ties to their extended families, so they may seek a work atmosphere that is more collaborative than competitive, with employees working together to achieve common goals. And like other members of Gen Y, Hispanic Millennials, particularly those who are socially and politically conscious, may seek job opportunities that adhere to their personal values and give them an opportunity to contribute to the greater good.
Another piece of common ground that Hispanic Millennials do share with the other members of their generation is the respect they hold for the generations that come before, particularly with members of the World War II generation and Baby Boomers. For Hispanic Millennials, this respect and appreciation likely derives from the closeness they often have with their grandparents and other older relatives. Because of this, Hispanic Millennials will have the tendency to look to older bosses as grandparent-like figures and look to build a strong professional relationship with them. They will value the wisdom and experience of their older bosses and seek to learn from them, not for professional gain necessarily, but because of the bonds they have known with older relatives. The older boss who will take a Hispanic Millennial under his or her wing will have the opportunity to shape future generations by imparting knowledge to the younger generation.
While Millennials as a group will not particularly value sacrifice and commitment to an organization as much as they do their commitment to their own personal and professional goals, Hispanic Millennials, who were in many cases raised by working-class parents who sought to give them access to greater opportunities, are much more likely to appreciate work opportunities and be willing to “pay [their] dues” to work toward future opportunities. All members of this generation, however, have come of age and entered the workforce in the midst of the financial sector fallout and a recession, so they likely view work opportunities as less stable than previous generations and will, therefore, not stop seeking opportunities for professional gain even while employed. Some may construe this tendency as a lack of loyalty, but Gen Y is still a rather principled generation, which, having faced the ups and downs of the market, has developed its own sense of what is most valuable in life and work and looks for opportunities to work not just for financial gain, but to put their principles and priorities in to practice.
All the same, members of this generation are as a whole more willing to work than older generations may realize. Unlike previous generations which were more likely to seek a strict delineation between their work life and their personal lives, Millennials are comfortable with the concept of work-life integration. And while Gen Y generally works well with others, more and more members of this generation are embracing the concept of working from home. According to a series of studies cited in a Talent Space blog article, “Generation Y: Understanding the Work Habits of Millennials,” 3 out of 5 Millennials expect to work remotely, and workforce trends tend to align with this expectation. From 2008 to 2012, in fact, the number of U.S. workers working remotely increased by 16%. Millennials are not above sending out important work-related e-mails from their smart phones while out for dinner with friends, or working into the wee hours of the night to complete a work project. Millennials are willing to work odd hours, possibly even every day of the week, if it allows them to have the opportunity to do the things that are meaningful to them, which may include daily workouts, spending time with family and friends, volunteering, and working on their own creative or business projects.
Employers looking to attract and retain Millennial talent will want to recognize the principles that matter most to Generation Y and look to provide them with a work environment that recognizes and appreciates these values, if not allowing them to work toward them directly. Generation Y is willing and eager to learn from older generations in the workforce, and older generations willing to work with and learn from them will have just as much to gain.