Recently, Generation Y has received a relentless beating in the press for our so called sense of “entitlement”. With this in mind, I went searching for someone who is willing to defend the fine people of my generation.
I think that Ian David Moss’ blog post “Generation Y and the Problem of “Entitlement”: A Bullet-Point Manifesto” does a pretty good job. Moss’ post states that no single individual in Gen Y is any smarter than any single person from Older generations, Gen Y just has MORE smart people.
Gen Y has more educated people than any previous generation, causing the job market to be overwhelmed by qualified applicants. This has resulted in many Gen Y workers taking jobs that they are tremendously over-qualified for (I can name numerous finance graduates from the class of 2008 who are currently selling insurance with Baby Boomers who never spent a day in college).
Moss brings up the great point that instead of sitting around and complaining about how over-eager and impatient Gen Y is to rise in the workplace, managers should take advantage of their more talented workforce by installing a flexible hierarchy that allows lower level workers to contribute more to the company than they have in the past.
The bottom line: Gen Y wants to work hard and contribute. Why not let them?
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