The players in the digital game are Y talents

Despite all the tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tions tak­ing place, we need to keep in mind that there is a human fac­tor that plays a vital role in the dig­i­tal indus­try. We can auto­mate process­es, we can have robots as new team mem­bers, and we can work with smart, con­nect­ed, shared devices that tell us what we want before we even know it. But there is no orga­ni­za­tion — to date or in the future — that can oper­ate with­out any human beings at all.

So the ques­tions of the day are — Who are the main actors in this dis­rup­tive dig­i­tal game? What dis­tin­guish­es these up-and-com­ing tal­ents of gen­er­a­tion Y from their par­ents and grand­par­ents? The make­up of the glob­al work­force is in the mid­dle of a mas­sive change, where today half of the employ­ees in the world are con­sid­ered mil­len­ni­als or gen­er­a­tion Y — born between 1980 and 1997. Mil­len­ni­als are the chil­dren of gen­er­a­tion X and the large group of baby boomers, the major­i­ty of whom is about to retire. This Y gen­er­a­tion has been strong­ly influ­enced by the impact of the Inter­net on our dai­ly activ­i­ties: work and life are strong­ly inter­wo­ven, per­son­al opin­ions are expressed direct­ly and open­ly, and their new per­son­al lifestyle shapes how entire soci­eties think, act, and collaborate.

One could fill a book­shelf with arti­cles and stud­ies that have been pub­lished on this marked­ly dif­fer­ent gen­er­a­tion of mil­len­ni­als. Yes, there are dif­fer­ences that are worth remem­ber­ing, and yes, there are still a lot of val­ues, inter­ests, strengths, weak­ness­es, and desires that remain the same as in pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions. Being a mil­len­ni­al myself, I once was asked in a ple­nary dis­cus­sion to intro­duce myself as “the typ­i­cal gen Y / mil­len­ni­al.” Here is the tran­script of my answer:

I (as a mil­len­ni­al) favor the entre­pre­neur­ial spir­it, a high lev­el of inde­pen­dence, and yes, I’m dig­i­tal­ly savvy with strong objec­tions to micro­man­age­ment. I love empow­er­ment, I love chal­lenge, and I love excite­ment, thus I have a more unortho­dox approach to my career and my dai­ly job per­for­mance that does not par­al­lel tra­di­tion­al paths. I view tra­di­tion­al hier­ar­chies and author­i­ties skep­ti­cal­ly, but I bring an impres­sive port­fo­lio of aca­d­e­m­ic cre­den­tials and skills to the work­place. What do I want in return for putting those skills into action? I aim for fast-track pro­mo­tions, nice salary rais­es to fuel my non­pro­fes­sion­al areas of interest/hobbies, flex­i­ble work arrange­ments to com­bine pro­fes­sion­al and fam­i­ly life, and yes, there needs to be a rea­son, a big­ger pur­pose, and, of course, fun in what­ev­er I am sup­posed to be doing. I want mean­ing­ful work that adds val­ue, and I appre­ci­ate con­stant feed­back, flex­i­bil­i­ty and recog­ni­tion. I am also very impa­tient, so don’t you dare promise a dis­tant pay raise or pro­mo­tion — this will not get my attention.

It is typ­i­cal for us mil­len­ni­als to find dif­fer­ent and rapid­ly chang­ing work­places over the course of our careers. What will remain con­stant from one job to the next, how­ev­er, is that we have cer­tain expec­ta­tions of our­selves, our super­vi­sors, and the orga­ni­za­tions we work for. To start with our­selves first, gen­er­a­tion Y wants to learn tech­ni­cal or core skills in their areas of exper­tise because they ful­ly under­stand how nec­es­sary those skills are in a dig­i­tal envi­ron­ment. We are also extreme­ly inter­est­ed in learn­ing skills focused on self-man­age­ment and per­son­al pro­duc­tiv­i­ty as well as lead­er­ship skills, which are need­ed to solve cur­rent man­age­ment chal­lenges. All this should come with some sprin­kles of indus­try or func­tion­al know-how and should be pre­sent­ed in a cre­ative, inno­v­a­tive form or environment.

„Last but not least, the ques­tion remains of what mil­len­ni­als expect from super­vi­sors or “the boss” — a term Ys would nev­er use because of their dis­like of hierarchy.”

„In a nut­shell one could say that mil­len­ni­als are not will­ing to trust “old-school” schemes and sources such as preachy old advi­sors or tra­di­tion­al career tracks.”