Exposing Some Truths About Motivating Millennials in the Workforce

Today’s piece is a guest post by Dr. Bret L. Simmons.  Bret is an Associate Professor of Management in the College of Business at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), where he teaches courses in organizational behaviour, leadership, and personal branding to both undergraduate and MBA students. You can read more of Bret’s writings on leadership, followership, and social media at his website “Positive Organizational Behavior” at BretLSimmons.com. You can also find Bret on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Are the work values of younger employees different than those of others in today’s workplace? Not as much as we’ve been lead to believe, according to new research published in the Journal of Management by Jean Twenge and her colleagues.

Generation Me (GenMe, GenY or Millennials; born 1982-1999) are more individualistic than Generation X (Gen X; born 1965-1981) and Baby Boomers (Boomers; born 1946-1964), but until now the evidence for generational differences in work values has been scant, despite the army of consultants selling “solutions” for how to manage younger workers. This new study compared the work values of high school seniors in 1976, 1991, and 2006 (N = 16,507). The values they examined were leisure (schedule flexibility and time off), intrinsic rewards (interesting work and growth opportunity), extrinsic rewards (pay and status), social rewards (make friends), and altruistic rewards (help others and society).

The study found that contrary to popular belief, GenMe did not value social and altruistic rewards more than Boomers and GenX. Intrinsic rewards were important to GenMe, but less so than for any of the previous generations. Although intrinsic values are decreasing, don’t miss the fact that the study confirmed that across all generations, intrinsic rewards ranked toward the top of all work values.

The most significant finding of the study was that relative to Gen X and Boomers, leisure is particularly important to GenMe. GenMe also values extrinsic rewards more than Boomers (Gen X ranks the highest for valuing extrinsic rewards). This means younger workers want more money and status, but do not want to work harder to get those things. These findings support the popular notion that GenMe has a sense of entitlement. This disconnect between expectations and reality is typical of the overconfidence that comes with narcissism, which separate research has shown is on the rise in GenMe (Twenge & Campbell, 2009).

The authors conclude that “the desire for leisure and a better work-life balance starts long before young workers have families, so policies should go beyond those aimed at parents needing time to share child care duties and Boomers looking to gradually enter retirement; these policies should extend to younger people who want leisure time to travel or spend with friends (pp. 1135-1136). Because leisure time is so valued, managers might do well to consider offering it as a motivational reward along with pay and promotion.

The bottom line for me is the differences between generations are not as great as we’ve been lead to believe they are. That actually did not surprise me – every generation looks at the others and sees whatever differences exist as more significant than they really are. The biggest surprise for me was the sense of entitlement in younger workers that this study seems to confirm. Acting entitled is the biggest thing GenMe is accused of, but until now the support for that claim was largely anecdotal.

Our challenge as managers will be to provide younger workers with the schedule flexibility they so strongly desire, while at the same time encouraging them to remember that to the extent they value it, achievement will only go to those that are willing to work hard. The good news is the technologies and tools available today allow all generations to work smarter and more productive than at any time in our history. I hope our leaders will allow our younger employees to teach us new ways to work that can produce results all generations will value.

8 comments on “Exposing Some Truths About Motivating Millennials in the Workforce

  1. I think your last sentence nails it on the head….our current leaders need to be open to new ways to work and be the change that everyone in an organization can align with.

    1. I think we can all learn from each other. We have to remember that it is our responsibility to teach young people a proper work ethic, but we also have to be open to incorporating new tools and suggestions they might have. We should hold firm on the outcomes we must have but be flexible about how to get them. Thanks, Mike! Bret

  2. As a millenial, I would agree to the entitlement thing. Not sure why it is but it's something I fight. I think with the whole rash of 20something millionaire start-up company stories may fuel this.

    Something I always remind myself is that good things come with time and patience. It doesn't mean I am passive about my pursuits. It does mean that if success doesn't come overnight for me, that's fine. The gradual learning that come with barriers to success will help me more in the long run.

    1. You have a great perspective, Drew. Over time you will find that it will serve you well in all aspects of your life.

      I shared the entitlement findings with my class of undergraduate students today. I think most of them don't get it. The stakes are very high and I don't think they realize what an opportunity they have to differentiate themselves from the mass of their peers that will walk right into the negative attribution. I think young people can use the knowledge of this research to their advantage if they will only prepare.

      Thanks! Bret

  3. I would venture to say that this entitlement phenomena wouldn't all be blamed on one thing (and I would say by your response that you would agree). Growing up, I could see that it was very easy to be complacent and still "get by." The only real need to challenge yourself was in the effort of earning college acceptance letters and scholarships. Even then, colleges are probably a little easier to get into than before since they're always trying to grow their numbers and revenues.

    I was fortunate (though I didn't feel that way at the time!) to have parents that didn't allow me to be complacent. My expectations at home far beyond exceeded what was necessary to get by at school. We had some teachers that had the same mentality of (constructive) pushing but also had some teachers that did whatever they could just to move kids through the system.

    There is a fear of failure from all of us. Unfortunately that fear has been used to try and shield the next generation from that. I know I have had things blow up in my face and not go right at all. However, because of those things, I learned a TON. It shaped my learning process and helped me handle stressful situations when things go wrong with ease.

    If everything succeeded for me, I would think any effort would guarantee me success. If people my age haven't faced adversity, they have no idea how to handle it, therefore feeling like it's not fair.

    Sometimes failure and rejection (used properly) is a powerful teacher.

  4. Great study. As a millennial, I'm kind of shocked how often the snake oil salespeople (authors) write things about my generation that don't apply.

    1. There is a market for snake oil, David. Consultants get away with it because employers demand it and pay top dollar for it. They also don't ask for evidence before purchasing the potion. We should do better.

  5. Great summary!

    I think the good example targeted for Millenials is GetBadges. This is a platform dedicated for IT departments and it tries to resolve problems with engaging programmers, testers and PMs with their everyday work. People are motivated by receiving achievements and fighting with monsters. GetBadges rewards players with badges and display statistics in a monthly leaderboard and the goals are set by GameMaster. We have a lot of ideas how to improve it, but I think the most important now is to concentrate on game mechanics and how to more fully engage players.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.