Millennials are a much-maligned and misunderstood generation. I’m saying this not because I myself and many of my colleagues and friends are millennials. For the most part, I feel that we are a normal lot, or as quirky and diverse as any generation preceding us.
In the last couple of years, countless think pieces and surveys have focused on millennials, as well as much hand-wringing writing and commentary levelled at the generational faults of the under-30 set.
What often irks me is that these studies approach millennials as a monolithic group, instead of a large and diverse collection of people with different upbringings, beliefs, cultural experiences and life goals.
Take me as an example – being born in the early 1980s put me on the older end of the millennial age spectrum, and being married and a new mother also led to my different attitudes towards career development, stability and money than younger members of the group.
I think it’s misleading to make sweeping generationalisations about a whole generation. Surely the common notions that millennials are lazy, entitled and narcisstic do not apply to all millennials or even the majority of them.
Even in the business travel world, millennials continue to be cast in a different light from their predecessors. Hyper connected, social media addicts, wanting to mix work and pleasure, and a desire to bypass traditional corporate travel policies seem to be the common stereotypes associated with the youngest members of the workforce.
Interestingly, a recent exhaustive study conducted by the INSEAD’s Emerging Markets Institute, Universum and the HEAD Foundation of more than 16,000 people between 18 and 30 years old across 43 countries revealed that almost all views of millennials – whether it’s their desire to become leaders, the importance of work-life balance, the kind of managers preferred or priorities in life – vary considerably by region and culture.
A lot of the hype surrounding millennials probably stem from nervousness at having to recruit and retain these young employees, who are projected to make up 50 per cent of the global workforce by 2020.
Millennials, just like the gen X and baby boomers before them, generally value learning opportunities, professional development and personal fulfilment as much as monetary gains in the workplace, therefore such initiatives like the Industry Mentorship Programme – in which a group of hospitality veterans in Singapore band together to mentor youngsters just starting out in the industry – will encourage the millennials to step out, rise up the career ladder and pay it forward when their turn comes to guide the generation that comes after them.
This article was first published in TTG Asia, November 13, 2015 issue, on page 2. To read more, please view our digital edition or click here to subscribe
