Millennials and Generation Z – How different are these new Gen workers really?

Image via Pixabay. 

We’ve all heard the hype: The new generations are coming and they are so different.

These generations have been called every harsh name in the book. They’re entitled. They’re lazy. They’re self-absorbed. They’re sniveling whiny brats that expect a trophy for everything. Then, there is the incredibly contradictory rain of praise. They’re visionaries. They’re humanitarians. They’re brilliant. They’re changing the world.

There has already been an endless supply of articles written about the way that Millennials work. While some of the articles bring up interesting points that may be somewhat unique for the Millennial worker, such as a demand for organizational utilization of up-to-date technology, many of the things written about Millennial workers are simply broader desires that defy generational lines. I pointed out many of these shared desires in two of the earlier posts.

In the post Want to know the REAL Secret to engaging your Millennial Employees? we looked at how Millennial employees have the same basic needs as Boomers and other generations.

“Many people enjoy what they do. That being said, people do not (usually) work for enjoyment unless they volunteer or they own a company. People work because they want to survive.”

That means people of all generations need to be able to earn enough to pay their bills and put food on the table.

This fact alone makes Millennials less unique than some articles would suggest. There have been a few pieces that say that Millennials value other things such as perks, transparency, and professional development over salary. While there may be some truth in this observation, I can all but guarantee that if someone is not earning enough of a salary to enjoy their life outside the office, perks, transparency, and professional development will do little to keep them from eventually moving on.

Another point that has been brought up over and over again is that Millennials not only desire, but require ongoing feedback. This is true. However, as we learned in the post, The Importance of Ongoing Feedback, this is true for almost everyone.

“Cornell’s Vice President for HR and Safety Services, Mary Opperman isn’t convinced that this is a generational problem at all. In her Q&A, Managing Multigenerational Workforces , she says, “It is just too easy to point to age and lump people together. I don’t buy into the notion that the newest generation of workers is particularly needy. They want and need feedback. When I was starting out, so did I. Is it that they may be more inclined to seek it, or that we have forgotten how important feedback is to everyone?”

If Millennials, aren’t harbingers of doom or magical unicorns, what's this mean for Generation Z?

 Probably not a lot. Unless food, clothing, and housing suddenly become free-of-charge commodities, it’s unlikely that even a generation of true digital natives that have been fully immersed in technology for the entirety of their existence will be driven by hugely different motivators than their predecessors. They may not want to be chauffeured by their self-driving cars into the office daily to get the job done when they can work from anywhere, but neither will your CEO. They may want you to FINALLY upgrade your systems from Windows XP and invest in some necessary automation. But, they will ultimately still report to work in the morning because they still need to survive.

This piece was originally published on More Than Resources

Columns reflect the opinions of the contributor and do not necessarily reflect the views of Human Resources IQ.