'Millennials no different from earlier generations of workers'

This week, Kehlan looks at ‘millennials’ and why we need to stop thinking about them as a group out on their own because what they want as employees is no different from earlier generations of workers — a good place to work    

We love to put labels on things.

Perhaps it helps us to better understand something or even reinforce an ailing stereotype.

Maybe it just makes it easier to understand a new concept.

The term ‘millennials’ has been thrown about so much that we’ve inadvertently put a generation of people ahead of any other in the discussion about work, jobs and careers.

The fact is that they are not important.

This generation of people is nothing overtly special in how they work.

The demands for better pay, enjoyable careers and having a life outside work are nothing new.

Isn’t that what we all want from work?

The difference is that this generation has been able to articulate their demands much more than any other generation.

Yet HR firms and marketers are making a pretty penny in helping businesses ‘get inside the mind’ of a millennial.

In truth, it’s all just a large-scale con.

Like the Y2K computer bug or Bernie Madoff, a grand illusion with little substance.

If we list what the internet tells us millennials want, it makes the picture a little clearer:

Better workplaces

Flexible hours

Work/life balance

Mentors instead of bosses

Greater responsibilities in work

Are these things any different than what our parents wanted or the generation before us?

No, I’d imagine not. However, instead of hoping, this generation is demanding it.

This generation is empowered at work.

The idea that the older generation turns its nose up at such things is also false.

When you got a job, particularly in the Ireland of the 1970s and 1980s, you were happy to get it.

You took the job and many stayed in them for the rest of their lives.

Be lucky with what you have and hold on to it.

You were in no position to demand anything.

If you wanted change you went on strike, the individual had little or no power.

Now it is the business who must cater to the demands of the employee, because the worker has made it so.

If you want the best talent you have to be the best company.

This is not an argument about wages; this is an argument about life and having a good one.

This generation is different only in age. All workers want the same thing; there is no real difference.

Anybody who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something that you should already know. Just be a good place to work.

Taking this generation based on age profile and demographic is wrong and entirely false. There is no one sweeping value that can be tagged on each person.

We bracket them into one single idea, forgetting about the individual.

When we break it down to the individual level we see that no matter if you’re 25 or 55, you still, essentially, want the same things.

The key to all of this is the one thing that rarely gets mentioned.

That you have to be a good place in which to work, in order for you to get the best people.

If you need to hire a marketer to convince people they should work for you, you’re doing it all wrong.

Great places to work have turned their employees into brand champions.

These are people who are happy to talk about their flexible hours or the exchange of ideas in the workplace.

So, anybody who tells you they know what this generation wants really isn’t paying attention at all.

Because everybody is looking for the same thing.