The Trophy Kids Grow Up

Book excerpt: The first wave of the Millennial Generation—born between 1980 and 2001—is entering the work force, and employers are facing some of the biggest management challenges they’ve ever encountered. They are trying to integrate the most demanding and most coddled generation in history into a workplace shaped by the driven baby-boom generation. Like them or not, the millennials are America future work force. They are actually a larger group than the boomers—92 million vs. 78 million. The millennials are truly trophy kids, the pride and joy of their parents who remain closely connected even as their children head off to college and enter the work force. Millennials are a complex generation, with some conflicting characteristics. Although they’re hard working and achievement oriented, most millennials don’t excel at leadership and independent problem solving. They want the freedom and flexibility of a virtual office, but they also want rules and responsibilities to be spelled out explicitly. “It’s all about me,” might seem to be the mantra of this demanding bunch of young people, yet they also tend to be very civic-minded and philanthropic. This book will let readers meet the millennials and learn how this remarkable generation promises to stir up the workplace and perhaps the world. It provides a rich portrait of the millennials, told through the eyes of millennials themselves and from the perspectives of their parents, educators, psychologists, recruiters, and corporate managers. Clearly, the millennials represent a new breed of student, worker, and global citizen, and this book explores in depth their most salient attributes, particularly as they are playing out in the workplace. It also describes how companies are changing tactics to recruit millennials in the Internet age and looks at some of this generation’s dream jobs.