Generation Y is our next generation. Born between 1980 and 2000 (there’s no uniform agreement on those years), Generation Y numbers around 100 million or a third of our total population and it’s considered to be the largest and most diverse generation in our history. How has Generation Y been shaped by their times? What characteristics present challenges and opportunities to Fire/EMS?

The following is an excerpt from Connecting Generations: The Sourcebook by Claire Raines (Crisp Learning, 2003).

Who They Are

They’re the hottest commodity on the job market since Rosie the Riveter.They’re sociable, optimistic, talented, well-educated, collaborative, open-minded, influential, and achievement-oriented. They’ve always felt sought after, needed, indispensable. They are arriving in the workplace with higher expectations than any generation before them—and they’re so well connected that, if an employer doesn’t match those expectations, they can tell thousands of their cohorts with one click of the mouse. They’re the Millennial Generation. Born between 1980 and 2000, they’re a generation nearly as large as the Baby Boom, and they’re charged with potential. They’re variously called the Internet Generation, Echo Boomers, the Boomlet, Nexters, Generation Y, the Nintendo Generation, the Digital Generation, and, in Canada, the Sunshine Generation. But several thousand of them sent suggestions about what they want to be called to Peter Jennings at abcnews.com, and “Millennials” was the clear winner.

In this uncertain economy and highly competitive business environment, companies across North America recognize that the differentiator is their people. Those organizations that emerge as winners in the battle for talent will have their fingers on the pulse of this newest generation. They’ll design specific techniques for recruiting, managing, motivating, and retaining them.

The Millennials are just entering the workforce, and, as they do, employers are scrambling to find out everything they can about them. Are they Gen-Xers on steroids? Or are they a new breed entirely? How do they choose a career? And why? How will they change the workplace as we know it today? What are they looking for when they post their resumes on monster.com? What is their work ethic? What is unique about them? How do the best and brightest managers communicate with and motivate them?

While we’ll continue to see older colleagues—Xers, Boomers, and Veterans—supervising the newest recruits, other scenarios will become commonplace: experienced Boomers reporting to a fresh-faced Millennial…members of all four generations working side-by-side on teams…a Millennial calling on a powerful Gen-X client. Just as the Xers and Boomers finalize their own negotiations for an uncertain workplace peace, optimistic Millennials find themselves at the mercy of Xer skepticism. Gen-Xers complain the Millennials are another indulged generation like the Boomers—that they’re self-absorbed and Pollyanna-ish. Millennials charge that Gen-Xers are cynical and aloof—that they throw a wet blanket on fresh ideas and idealism.

As the most recent generation to enter the fray, the Millennials are likely to ask their older colleagues to chill out, get a life, and walk a mile in a younger generation’s shoes.

Shaped by Their Times

Born from 1980 through 2000, the most influential years for this generation as a whole are the 90s and the 00s. They’re the first generation to grow up surrounded by digital media. “They’re the ‘Babies on Board’ of the early Reagan years, the ‘Have You Hugged Your Child Today’ sixth graders of the early Clinton years, and the teens of Columbine,” say Neil Howe and William Strauss in Millennials Rising (Vintage Books, 2000). Just as all generations are programmed from the moment of birth, the Millennials began a series of programming experiences when they were infants. These experiences created the filters through which they see the world—especially the world of work. Eight key trends of the 90s and 00s have had a profound effect on their generational personality.

• Focus on children and family. In the decades right before and after the turn of the Millennium, Americans moved the spotlight back onto kids and their families. That spotlight has swung like a pendulum over the last sixty years. During the post-WWII era, children were all the rage. It was a popular time to be having kids and to be a kid. Then, when the Gen-Xers were growing up, the spotlight had shifted. Latchkey kids, children of divorce, and kids with two working parents found themselves growing up on their own, in the shadow of the Baby Boom. One Gen-Xer told me, “The Boomers took so much and left us so dry.” The early 90s saw the spotlight swinging back. Las Vegas and Club Med went family. Parents and grandparents took the kids along on trips across the country and to destinations all over the globe. Eating out—once an adult thing—became a family matter. Ninety percent of fathers attended the birth of their children. The Federal Forum on Family Statistics reported that national attention to children was at an all-time high (The earlier peak was in the 1960s when the Boomers were kids.). Older parents—the average age for moms was now 27—brought more maturity to their roles as caregivers, teachers, and coaches.


• Scheduled, structured lives. The Millennials were the busiest generation of children we’ve ever seen in the U.S, growing up facing time pressures traditionally reserved for adults. Parents and teachers micromanaged their schedules, planning things out for them, leaving very little unstructured free time. They were signed up for soccer camp, karate club, and ballet lessons—and their parents were called into service, shuttling them from one activity to the next. Some started carrying Daytimers when they were in elementary school.


• Multiculturalism. Kids grew up in the 90s and 00s with more daily interaction with other ethnicities and cultures than ever before. The most recent data from UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute shows that interracial interaction among college freshmen has reached a record high.


• Terrorism. During their most formative years, Millennials witnessed the bombing and devastation of the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City. They watched in horror as two Columbine High School students killed and wounded their classmates, and as school shootings became a three-year trend. And their catalyzing generational event—the one that binds them as a generation, the catastrophic moment they all witnessed during their first, most formative years—is, of course, the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.


• Heroism. Emerging out of those acts of violence, Millennials watched the re-emergence of the American hero. Policemen, firemen, firefighters, and mayors were pictured on the front page of the newspaper, featured on TV specials, and portrayed in art and memorabilia. In the 10 months following 9/11, the word hero was heard more than it had been in the entire 10 years before.


• Patriotism. During the post-Vietnam and Watergate era, patriotism was at an all-time low. Displaying the American flag, always and forever the right thing to do for members of the WWII Generation, had become less and less common—particularly among disillusioned Boomers and skeptical Xers. September 11 changed all that. Stores that carried flags sold out within 24 hours, ordered more and sold out again. Every other home and car seemed to fly the old red-white-and-blue. Businesspeople sported the stars and stripes on their lapels, and kids wore T-shirts with flags on the front, on the back, and on the shoulder. It seemed that national pride had been tested, and the overwhelming verdict was that patriotism was alive and well. The UCLA freshmen survey reported signs of renewed political interest. The percentage of students who reported discussing politics represented the “largest one-year increase since the 1992 presidential election year.”


• Parent advocacy. The Millennials were raised, by and large, by active, involved parents who often interceded on their behalf. Protective Boomer and Xer parents tried to ensure their children would grow up safely and be treated well. Parents challenged poor grades, negotiated with the soccer coach, visited college campuses with their charges, and even went along to Army recruiting centers. Then, too, Millennials actually like their parents. In the Generation 2001 survey, conducted by Lou Harris on behalf of Northwest Mutual Life Insurance, Mom and Dad were most often named when young people were asked whom they admired.


• Globalism. With penpals in Singapore and Senegal, Millennials grew up seeing things as global, connected, and open for business 24/7.

Compelling Messages

Growing up, Millennials were bombarded with a unique set of consistent and compelling messages—many of them so imbedded in the culture that adults, let alone children, were barely even aware of them. The school system reinforced a distinct set of values. Parenting patterns unique to the era molded a new generational perspective. The era had its own mood that pervaded the developing perspective of youth. These messages had a profound effect on the generation as a whole:

• Be smart—you are special. They’ve been catered to since they were tiny. Think Nickolodeon, Baby Gap, and Sports Illustrated for Kids.


• Leave no one behind. They were taught to be inclusive and tolerant of other races, religions, and sexual orientations.


• Connect 24/7. They learned to be interdependent—on family, friends, and teachers. More Millennials say they can live without the television than the computer. Many prefer chatting on line to talking on the phone.


• Achieve now! Some parents hired private agents to line up the right college; others got started choosing the right pre-school while the child was still in the womb.


• Serve your community. Fifty percent of high school students reported volunteering in their communities, many of their high schools requiring community service hours for graduation. On one Roper Survey, when Millennials were asked for the major cause of problems in the U.S., they answered selfishness.
  

Millennial Characteristics

All of this translates into a generation of employees with a different work ethic than any other, certainly different from their Gen X colleagues. Here are the main components of their work ethic:

• Confident. Raised by parents believing in the importance of self-esteem, they characteristically consider themselves ready to overcome challenges and leap tall buildings. Managers who believe in “paying your dues” and coworkers who don’t think opinions are worth listening to unless they come from someone with a prerequisite number of years on the resume find this can-do attitude unsettling.


• Hopeful. They’re described as optimistic yet practical. They believe in the future and their role in it. They’ve read about businesses with basketball courts, stockrooms stocked with beer for employers, and companies that pay your way through school. They expect a workplace that is challenging, collaborative, creative, fun, and financially rewarding.


• Goal and achievement-oriented. Just a day after she won a totally unexpected Olympic gold medal, skater Sara Hughes was talking about her next goal—scoring a perfect 1600 on her SATs. Many Millennials arrive at their first day of work with personal goals on paper.


• Civic-minded. They were taught to think in terms of the greater good. They have a high rate of volunteerism. They expect companies to contribute to their communities—and to operate in ways that create a sustainable environment.


• Inclusive. Millennials are used to being organized in teams—and to making certain no one is left behind. They expect to earn a living in a workplace that is fair to all, where diversity is the norm—and they’ll use their collective power if they feel someone is treated unfairly.

So given Raines’ thorough review, what’s our quick take on Gen Y’s challenges and opportunities?

The Challenges

• Their impatience: Technology has made Millenials’ world fast and conditioned them to instant gratification. They may experience frustration with the hierarchical structure and promotional procedures of Fire/EMS.


• They may have less regard for tradition than previous generations. They will question everything.

The Opportunities

• Their diversity and inclusiveness; civic, service, family, and team-oriented characteristics.


• Their technology savvy and comfort level with change.

We believe that Generation Y has the potential of enabling us to grow a pretty phenomenal next generation of Fire/EMS personnel!