A new generation of recent graduates and young workers, the Millennials, have started entering the workforce within the last ten years and work alongside older generations, such as Generation Xers and Baby Boomers. The limited research on Millennials suggests that Millennials are significantly different from their predecessors. The lack of robust or academic findings on the subject of Millennials and their impact in the workplace form the motivation for this research.
To give clarity and cohesion on the topic of Millennials and to guide the analysis, it was necessary to develop a comprehensive taxonomy, or model, of Millennials’ traits. Two aspects of the model were investigated through the use of interviews.
The results of the study do not support the existence of all of the numerous and distinct traits that Millennial have, as suggested by the literature; however, the results do support a subset of the traits. Compared to other current generations and to other recent generations of youths, the results suggest that Millennials have a greater sense of entitlement, have more unrealistic expectations, and need a greater amount of management involvement, such as supervision, structure, and feedback. Some factors outside of the model were found during the course of conducting the study. These factors may have impacted the results and possibly resulted in a false rejection of the propositions of this study.
This exploratory research takes a step towards getting a better understanding of Millennials by providing a comprehensive taxonomy of Millennials’ traits and some academic findings for future research to build upon. A more rigorous study with a strengthened field methodology may better explore the impact of various factors on the results of intergenerational and Millennial investigations.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:WATERLOO/oai:uwspace.uwaterloo.ca:10012/6205 |
| Date | 30 August 2011 |
| Creators | Engels, Jennifer E. |
| Source Sets | University of Waterloo Electronic Theses Repository |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
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