Millennial Overview

Millennials have certain characteristics such as desiring work-life balance, expecting collaboration, and valuing learning. However, it is unfair to label and make assumptions about individuals based solely on their generation. It is important to have authentic conversations and be loyal to the person rather than making decisions based on stereotypes. When coaching millennials, focus on areas for improvement and performance rather than assumptions about their generation. When we talk about millennials, we get a little bit squeamish of doing that for the fact that we can often label and put people in buckets which is not fair. When you think about some of the high-level attributes, and there are many definitions of millennials, they crave work-life balance, they expect collaboration, they require a seat at the table, they want to keep on learning, and their loyalty is fickle. Now they grew up with technology and so all of those attributes get us thinking, right? They value meaningful motivation, they place importance on relationships, and those are really good things. Yet often we can say, well, he or she's a millennial, and we immediately start making decisions based on their generation without talking to the person. Not every person in any generation gap, for that matter, is going to act the same. So remember, have the conversations with authenticity and loyalty to the person. So when you're coaching, again, you want to make sure that you're coaching to a performance area, to an area where they have an opportunity to improve, not just based on assumptions of who they are as millennials.