Who is Generation Y?

Born:                                     1980-2000
Portion of the Workforce: 22% and growing
Nicknames:                         Generation Y, Gen Y, Echo Boomers,                                            Google Generation, Millennials,                                                 Nexters and the Why Generation

I’ve worked with Gen Y’s for over 12 years and this is simply (and I’m not joking) my favourite age group to work with. They are passionate, ambitious (yes this is not a typo), incredible multi-taskers, eager to learn and unfortunately often misunderstood.

What Are the Cultural Shapers for Generation Y?

In my opinion, this is a generation of overindulgence. They’ve been brought up in a culture of “Buy now, pay later” – a culture that reinforces instant gratification in everything from food, to schedules to money. In my resource Raising Teens In An Age of OverindulgenceI talk about the 3 most prevalent overindulgences for this generation – over-eating (child obesity has soared during this time), over-spending (youth under 25 are one of the fastest groups going bankrupt right now) and over-scheduling. When we live in a world of instant gratification – we do what feels good right now – we don’t set boundaries but we pay the price for it later.

In the life of typical Generation Y’s, nearly 50% of their parents are divorced, ¾ of their mothers work, most families have dual incomes and therefore more money. So how does this impact them? In many ways! Many parents have told me that they feel an enormous amount of guilt - guilt for working too much and not having the family life that they had hoped for. So without realizing it, some parents will buy their kids more stuff to alleviate their own guilt.  One executive mom told me that after a business trip she came home with 2 more pairs of jeans for her teen daughter only to realize that her daughter already had 12 pairs.

Many parents admitted that they were afraid to set limits (which is how we teach delayed gratification – the essential skill of discipline) because they didn’t like conflict (many parents admitted that the word ‘discipline’ was a very bad word to them) or they simply didn’t want to use the little time they had with their kids talking about boundaries.  As a result, this generation has experienced a very permissive style of parenting – their parents are often more like friends. That being said, these parents (who are mostly boomers) tend to be extremely hands-on (some would say they micromanage) and try to tell their kids what to do. Another major shaper is that over the last 20 years the economy has shifted to become more of an employees market for labour – there are many more jobs and not enough people to fill them which means that Generation Y’s are in an incredible place where they can be picky about where they work.

What is the DNA of Generation Y?

As a result, this generation wants to have the lifestyle of their parents, but they want it now. They are ambitious – they want to be VP but they want it to happen this week. They are passionate, and are one of the most socially conscience generations, so they will want to know what your company is doing to help others. Being raised on the Internet – they are extremely quick and get bored easily. Some have called this generation ‘Stimulus Junkies’. They may seem impatient but it’s because they are so accustomed to things moving quickly. They are very well educated and love to learn. They love to be asked their opinion (after all, that is what they are used to) and may come across as overly-confident (although don’t be fooled - many struggle with low or false self-esteem – in fact this generation is known by some as the “Sad Generation" because they are the most medicated in history).