Oh yes, Y’s, management is clogged with Boomers who assume you will understand what is required – after all, what is required is what is immediately best for boomers and in their selfish world, that is obvious. They needed bigger houses and bigger cars and enormously inflated bank statements to match their egos, all without working to pay for it. It is this generation we have to thank for the worst financial/moral crisis since the great depression.

Gen Y’s, these are your parents (Not Gen X’s). And you have learned so much. Top flight education & extracurriculars. Primed to do meaningful work. (Thank you Charles, NYC) What you really mean is give me the 20% of work that is fun and interesting because I am too good to have to do the other 80% that is required to actually get the job done. FYI, retooling a factory might take longer than the 6 months you expect to spend at any given company on your path to personal greatness.

Gen Y’s, what makes you think I should spend hours of my time with you? I actually have a lot of work to do. Your product is unproven. Your commitment nonexistent. Your problem solving skills don’t extend beyond the phone in your hand. The hours I spend with you come directly from time I could use to be productive.

Gen X’s have had to fight for everything from day one. We didn’t have good student loans or good mortgage rates when we were starting out. We are the generation that will likely be the first without social security. (Frankly, most of my Gen X friends would like to see the boomers & Gen Y’s fight it out and get out of our way. I guess that’s the selfish Gen X thing showing.)

Of course, all of this is generational sterotypes overlaid on the corporate culture in particular. And it seems to me that corporate culture is where we now keep the overeducated, marginally productive of our society. That big bump in the middle of the herd.

It is always those who manage to escape the norm who we admire. The Richard Bransons from the Boomers and the men who founded Google and Bonnaroo from Gen X. Most importantly, our new president. Check out his story.

The warning here, Gen Y’s is that if you are all brilliant, tech-savy escapers of the norm (who need constant hand holding from your elders?!), you’re probably right in the middle of the herd. How special.

The biggest hurdle in working with the baby boomer generation is the lack of communication. In layman’s terms their communication style is ‘old school’. They don’t communicate well verbally. We’ve grown up on cell phones, live video chat, text messaging that is instant, all things that increase our ability to communicate exactly what the other is thinking or needs done. Our boomer generation bosses seem to expect jobs, requirements, standards without verbalizing. They grunt, roll eyes, cuss, and often times appear flustered without communicating exactly what they would have wanted done differently. Our generation is used to addressing needs immediately and efficiently if told exactly what is required.

Barring entreprenuerial endeavors, most cases of career development are working cooperatively with different generations. Gen Y is used to multitasking, working quickly, and using efficiencies to do things only once (with proper guildlines and verbal instruction) and in order to do that do not want to waste time trying to interpret and redo work that will not be acceptable to the older generation if not communicated properly.

All in all fantastic article. Thanks

- To my fellow Gen Yers, whatever work you are given the product (even if it doesn’t matter) should wow. Making copies then they should be collated, neat and done instantly. If you wow you will get more work, if you say well it doesn’t matter and just do it, then you are ensuring you will only get things that don’t matter.

-Our baby boomer parents provided most of us with top flight education, extracurriculars, etc. We are primed to do important, meaningful work and contribute right away. If you don’t offer that then don’t expect to get the best of our generation. There are employers who do and we saw companies break the idea of loyalty with our parents. Think about your own kids and what you expect them to be able to do once they are on there own. Certainly there are plenty of Gen Yers who aren’t ready because lessons (formal and informal) didn’t sink in. However, expecting this is the case and requiring putting in the time and working your way up is a great way to guarantee that you get the middle of the pack.

All of the symptoms described in the column which are ascribed to “Generation Y” are the warning signs of weak leadership. In particular, it seems like management here may be inflexible and top down as opposed to embracing an agile, consensus driven approach. Positive communication seems to be lacking. Newsflash– you have to communicate goals and expectations constantly if you want to be successful in a changing business environment– no matter who you are managing.

Our generation shows personality, and acceptance to unconventional thinking, we have clear yet open minds but, are criticized for that and perceived to be something that we infact are not. Eventually one day this will get better, but I believe that we are going to have to wait until the next generation comes into the work force…nothing you know can be easy in life unless your just born either rich or exceptionally lucky!

I agree with a lot of things mentioned by the author, most importantly, the personal approach and constant attention aspect of it.

Lastly, I must confess, I am surprised to see managers and senior managers who have taken 20+ years to reach their position and I believe Gen Y will take less time to do the same…

I thought I knew it all when I was that age too. It takes a bit of arrogance and “can do” attitude to succeed, hopefully tempered with a bit of common sense. I’d rather see youth with ambition than youth without it.

I spent many years in management at a “Fortune 100″ firm, and we recruited “top 5%” college graduates from top universities every year. I really don’t see any difference now than I did ten or fifteen years ago.

You’ll always find something that plays to stereotypes if that’s what you’re looking for. If you instead seek to see talented individuals, that’s what you just might find.

Sure, I’ve had to tell some young staff members that club clothes belong at the club. On the other hand, I used to wear a leather jacket and biker boots to work. Sometimes I still do. Leadership and conformity don’t always mesh, and you need to be able to see beyond the nose ring.

All though an over used term “no nonsense” applies beautifuly. I enjoy clear straigh forward ideas. Bold honesty, and solid strategic direction. No office politics. No power distance issues. I like results, and will work negatively with a a manager that fails to prove himself a natural leader.

As a “Gen-Y’er” who is gainfully employed and has worked as a hiring manager in the past, I find these juvenile posts regarding how to ‘handle’ my peers to be both ridiculous and in bad taste. In the 5 years I worked as a sales manager before moving to my current position, I had the opportunity to interview and hire dozens of new employees, across all age groups and many walks of life. In that time, the folks I had the most trouble with were not from my generation, but from the ‘boomers’.

Everytime I turned around there was some new excuse for why things weren’t getting done! “I can’t learn a new computer system, I just learned the old one.” “I am just so bad with computers.” “I forgot how to email this list again, can you show me (for the 4th time this week)?” Do you know what that tells me about baby boomers? Not a thing. What it tells me is that those particular people made poor excuses for their own lack of flexibility.

Similarly, if you think you are having a problem with ‘Gen-Y’, look at your management practices. Do you have expectations of your employees that you don’t specify? Do you expect your employees to put in hours of unpaid overtime every week? Let me tell you the one massive generalization that I believe has the most truth to it regarding my generation: we have no respect for hypocrites. If your company policy is that employees should balance work and home life, but only people who put in 10-15 hours of unpaid overtime a week get promoted, then you are a hypocrite, and no one else has bothered to tell you.

Here’s a simple formula for ensuring you are helping your employees become as successful as possible:

Step 1: In plain terms, define your workplace expectations and requirements.
Step 2: Reward those employees who are fulfilling their obligations to the company in the best/most efficient ways possible.
Step 3: Discipline employees who are not fulfilling their obligations to the company.
Step 4: Profit.

Already, we are seeing the demand for college and master degree graduates. Increasingly, young people are facing challenges that the “won’t happen to me” generation never anticipated. They will be humbled and will learn to be grateful for the things the opportunities they earn; rather than simply feeling entitled to rewards devoid of the handwork associated with it.