Reuters Canada has an article titled “Generation Y: Tech-Savvy Grads with Pushy Parents”. It’s most a retread of an article I have already posted about, but I thought this quote at the end from an LGA exec was interesting:

“I think we as parents are certainly partly to blame,” Gilleard said. “In America, there are now big global companies who have to have policies on how to deal with parents… Some parents are coming back and saying their children are worth more — they are effectively acting as agents for their children.”

But all that could change if a global economic downturn hits demand, he warned.

“In the early 1990s, graduates were really laying down the law saying they wanted a company car and phone,” he said. “Then overnight the market turned and they had to become much more adaptable. Whether that would happen with Generation Y and if they could cope is yet to be seen.”

The belief that there exists a ‘status quo’ to this sort of thing worries me. While it’s definitely true that attitudes toward work — and the balance of power in the employer/employee relationship — tends to shift as the economy rises and falls, each successive generation has brought change with it, and ours isn’t going to be any different. While Y workers would need to stay quiet, grit their teeth, and work jobs they hate if “the market turned”, that would do nothing to actually change attitudes. If anything, a market that forced people to work jobs they hate for long periods of time would just lead to an untalented, less productive and terribly unhappy workforce.

Embracing change is the first step toward company success. Hoping that it’s just a passing fad is a mistake that employers need to work to avoid.

Tags: generational shift, status quo