Generation Gap or Workforce Age?
Journalists love to take anecdotal evidence of changing workforce habits and apply generalizations about secular trends in the workplace. Now it's Gen "Y" who is taking center stage.
But Gen Y is really bringing little new to the mix. Similar revolutions in the workplace were attributed to Gen "X" a decade ago, and the "Boomers" two decades ago. It would appear that these workplace attitudes, while shifting a little over time, are really reflective of cyclical trends -- and that each new generation entering the workforce has similarly "radical" ideas about changing what work means. That is, it's not the Gen Y is bringing something new, but that people entering the workforce (regardless of the year on the calendar) inevitably have (the same) "fresh" ideas that other people of the same age, but in other years on the calendar, have fostered.
It's not so much that any particular generation is re-inventing the rules of work, but that people in their 20s typically have a different perspective than people in their 50s. Or as the French say, plus ça change.
(It is also ironic, or perhaps a telling Freudian slip, that a Gen X song title forms the basis for the "witty" headline of this article.... meaning one could have seen this same set of values attributed to Gen X more than a decade ago -- with the same headline.)
Source
But Gen Y is really bringing little new to the mix. Similar revolutions in the workplace were attributed to Gen "X" a decade ago, and the "Boomers" two decades ago. It would appear that these workplace attitudes, while shifting a little over time, are really reflective of cyclical trends -- and that each new generation entering the workforce has similarly "radical" ideas about changing what work means. That is, it's not the Gen Y is bringing something new, but that people entering the workforce (regardless of the year on the calendar) inevitably have (the same) "fresh" ideas that other people of the same age, but in other years on the calendar, have fostered.
It's not so much that any particular generation is re-inventing the rules of work, but that people in their 20s typically have a different perspective than people in their 50s. Or as the French say, plus ça change.
(It is also ironic, or perhaps a telling Freudian slip, that a Gen X song title forms the basis for the "witty" headline of this article.... meaning one could have seen this same set of values attributed to Gen X more than a decade ago -- with the same headline.)
Source