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How those spoiled millennials will make the workplace better for everyone

By Emily Matchar,August 16, 2012

(Page 2 of 2)

According to surveys, 50 percent of Gen Y-ers would rather be unemployed than stay in a job they hate. Unlike their child- and mortgage-saddled elders, many can afford to be choosy about their jobs, given their notorious reliance on their parents. After all, they can always move back in with Mom and Dad (40 percent of young people will move home at least once, per Pew research), who are likely to be giving them financial help well into their 20s (41 percent of Gen Y-ers receive financial support from their parents after college, according to research from Ameritrade).

In fact, it’s possible that a bad economy can make being choosy even easier — if more people are struggling to find work and living at home, there’s no stigma to it.

Nancy Sai, a 25-year-old who works at a nonprofit in Manhattan, spent a year living with her parents and working at a gas station while trying to snag her dream job. Her mom kept bugging her to look for something different — teaching! government! anything! — but Sai held firm. While it took her a year to find the ideal gig, she’s glad she waited. Her job is meaningful, the office environment friendly and welcoming, her bosses forthcoming with feedback. Some of her friends have not been so lucky — one quit her job in politics when her boss refused to give her any time off.

“She couldn’t separate her work life from her personal life at all,” Sai says. “She quit without another job lined up. She said she felt the most liberated she had in two years.”

Despite the recession, or perhaps because of it, corporations are eager to hire and retain the best, most talented Gen Y workers. “In this risky economic environment, the energy, insight and high-tech know-how of Gen Yers will be essential for all high-performing organizations,” said a 2009 study on Gen Y from Deloitte, the professional services giant.

Companies are beginning to heed Gen Y’s demands. Though flextime and job-sharing have been staples of the workforce for a few decades, they are becoming more accepted, even in rigid corporate culture, says Laura Schildkraut, a career counselor specializing in the needs of Gen Y. There has also been a rise in new work policies, such as ROWE, or “results only work environment,” a system in which employees are evaluated on their productivity, not the hours they keep. In a ROWE office, the whole team can take off for a 4 p.m. “Spider-Man” showing if they’ve gotten enough done that day.

Radical-sounding perks such as unlimited paid vacation — assuming you’ve finished your pressing projects — are more common among companies concerned with attracting and retaining young talent. By 2010, 1 percent of U.S. companies had adopted this previously unheard-of policy, largely in response to the demands of Generation Y.

The Deloitte study warns that, to retain Gen Y-ers, companies “must foster a culture of respect that extends to all employees, regardless of age or level in the organization.” In other words: Treat your Gen Y workers nicely. But we should be treating everyone nicely already, shouldn’t we?

Beyond that, Gen Y’s demands may eventually help bring about the family-friendly policies for which working mothers have been leading the fight. Though the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 afforded some protections for working parents, genuine flexibility is still a privilege of the lucky few, and parents who try to leave the office at 5:30 p.m. are often accused of not pulling their weight. Well, guess what? Now everybody wants to leave the office at 5:30. Because they’ve got band practice. Or dinner with their grandma. Or they need to walk their rescue puppy.

The American workplace has been transformed during economic upswings and downturns. The weekend was a product of labor union demands during the relative boom of the early 20th century. The Great Depression led to the New Deal’s Fair Labor Standards Act, which introduced the 40-hour workweekand overtime pay to most Americans. But now, workplace change is coming from unadulterated, unorganized worker pushiness.

So we could continue to roll our eyes at Gen Y, accuse them of being spoiled and entitled and clueless little brats. We could wish that they’d get taken down a peg by the “school of hard knocks” and learn to accept that this is just the way things are.

But if we’re smart, we’ll cheer them on. Be selfish, Gen Y! Be entitled! Demand what you want. Because we want it, too.

Emily Matchar is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Salon, Gourmet and Outside, among other publications. She is the author of an upcoming book about “new domesticity.”