By 2025, millennials will form 75 percent of the global workforce. Soon, they will dominate the world’s workplaces and permeate its corporate culture. A generation that was raised on mobile devices and social networks, millennials are shaping and changing the concept of work.
The idea of working a traditional nine to five job just to pay the bills, is no longer going to cut it. Millennials want more than just a paycheck, they crave meaningful, purposeful and fulfilling careers. Success is not limited to financial success, but doing something that you’re passionate about. Millennials are on a mission to change the world.
Millennials + Telecommuting
Telecommuting is no longer a concept of the future. The idea of working from home or while traveling is something that millennials appreciate and look for when applying to and accepting job positions. In the thriving age of the internet, we are discovering new ways to stay connected each and every day. Due to inventions such as Skype and Google Hangout, people no longer need to be in the same physical location to get work done.
The flexibility to get work done any time, from anywhere, is something that’s essentially appealing to this generation. Thanks in part to new technologies and the mobile revolution, this type of flexible work environment increases productivity by enabling millennial workers to get their jobs done without having to adhere to traditional workplace constructs. And, as more companies realize the benefits of adding remote working options, they are able to open their talent pool globally and get better work results from happier employees.
Millennials prioritize experiences over ownership. With the rapid rise of the sharing economy, platforms such as Airbnb and a wealth of co-working spaces around the world, more millennials are trading in cubicles for plane tickets. Unshackled from their permanent desks, they are giving up the permanence of a home for the excitement of life on the road.
These sweeping cultural shifts along with productivity moving to the cloud and the rise of the sharing economy, have made way for programs like “Remote Year” to emerge. Remote Year offers professionals across the globe, the opportunity to spend a year, traveling, working and working remotely. Spending one month in different cities, the community connects with local cultures and business ecosystems, forming lifelong, borderless personal and professional relationships along the way. These are exactly the types of experiences that Millennials are actively pursuing.
Millennials + The Internship Generation
On the flip side, there are a number of millennials who are actively seeking full-time work in their respective fields but are unable to find it. Thus, they find themselves trapped in an endless cycle of unpaid or low-paying jobs and internships. While the idea of slaving away in two, three or four jobs without a clear path for advancement may seem unimaginable to an older generation, those in their 20s seem to respond to their jobless fate with a collective shrug. To them, internships are the new normal.
They are members of the permanent intern underclass: educated millennials who are locked out of the traditional career ladder and are having to settle for two, three and sometimes more internships after graduating college, all with no end in sight. The era of internships being strictly for college students has ended. It has been replaced by an onset of loosely defined internships — some paying a small stipend, some nothing, replacing traditional entry-level jobs for many fresh out of college.
Millennials are driven, idealistic and ambitious. Contradictory to what older generations might think, they are actually incredibly hard workers. To them, spending all of their time and energy working multiple low-paying or no-paying jobs still trumps pursuing a full-time job that they hate. Where generations before them would take whatever position necessary to make ends meet, members of the millennial generation are much more interested in truly enjoying what they do.
Millennials + Change-makers
Millennials want to make a difference. Whether it’s impacting their organization, the community or the world, millennials pride themselves on their ability to make positive change happen. They want to do meaningful work that reflects larger societal concerns. In fact, almost two-thirds of millennials would rather make about $40,000 a year at a job they love than $100,000 a year at a job they think is boring.
Millennials are interested in corporate social responsibility and ethical causes. They are more loyal to good brands and companies. They value action. They like for their employers to contribute to social or ethical causes that they believe are important. When millennials feel that the work they’re doing has a clear, positive purpose, it helps them, and the businesses they work for, to thrive. Millennials are, without a doubt, the future of the business world and are changing it for the better.
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