With Generation Y taking more and more responsibility in the workplace, it's important to understand what makes this generation different -- whether you're a Gen Y millennial yourself, a Gen Xer, or a baby boomer -- so you can relate to them as colleagues and customers and keep your business growing.
Baby boomers have been around long enough to be highly familiar, but for some time millennials, or Generation Y, have been taking on more and more responsibility. If you understand what makes Generation Y unique, you'll make better hiring decisions, retain valuable staff, target customers more effectively, and boost sales.
When it comes to executing strategy, understanding who you're working with is crucial. Hire the wrong people and you're toast. If you can't retain employees, there's no one to carry out your plans. Customers will go elsewhere if you can't make your offers enticing -- and sales are the backbone of every organization.
The Generation Y Experience
Millennials, or Gen Y, were born from 1977 to 1998. The 1980's were their formative childhood years. Ronald Reagan was in the White House for eight years, the Moral Majority became popular, and there was a growing openness in Europe typified by the fall of the Ceausescu dictatorship in Romania, the revolution in Czechoslovakia, and China's Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. Baby boomers started to gain positions of power during this period; AIDS shocked the world and alcohol and drug education expanded. The tech world developed a new programming language -- C -- calculators and digital watches were popular, the first supercomputer was developed, and video games were launched.
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Gen Y is the first generation that has grown up in a culture of high consumerism and high technology. The Internet, cell phones, instant messaging -- Ys are always in communication. They stay close. They're into sharing -- win them with group offers that family and friends can join in on. Likely to be the most tech-savvy members of the household, win them over with the design and tech aspects of your product. And give them a role in customization.
Family Life
Millennials share a similar exposure to divorce, but their boomer helicopter parents often seem to swoop into view to influence their millennial children and their children's teachers, coaches, and mentors. There is concern that this parental meddling could have a negative effect on millennials' ability to grow and be independent. Millennials often move in groups, their friends frequently substituting for family.
Product aspects that enhance communication will be well received by Gen Y. There's a shared aspect to almost everything. 'Friends and family' offers are considered a plus -- it's something else they can share.
Interest In Politics
Gen Y is more optimistic than Gen X. They're activists who feel they can make a difference, as we are seeing with the current upswing in voter registration during this presidential campaign season.
Gen Y's love of groups is an ideal situation for a company that knows how to sell add-ons. This is a customer who wants to be loyal and who is less involved with tradition and ethics. There is great opportunity to sell new things to this generation -- they're open and higher risk-takers overall than Gen X.
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