Who are the millennials?

So, who are these millennials anyway?

Let’s play a game of “When was it said?”

Today’s quote:

“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

If you believe recent digital news clippings, this quote might as well have been uttered by any number of middle-level managers (albeit with a flair for antiquated speech) who have had to supervise the increasing workforce of those wretched “millennials.”

And, if the press clipping are right, millennials are no longer reading this blog post. They quickly Googled the quote above, became disinterested after knowing the answer and are now in their supervisor’s office demanding a raise just for showing up.

In dozens of articles and blog posts, millennials are stereotyped as entitled twenty-somethings who are a product of helicopter parenting and receiving a trophy for just participating. Articles describe frustrated employers who feel forced to coddle this emerging workforce that seems to have little ambition.

On the flip side, some business writers tout the benefits of hiring millennials, claiming they are tech savvy and more cost effective than their counterparts. Millennials are self-expressive, natural brainstormers and highly educated.

Of course, the truth is there is no perfect stereotype for millennials. What we do know is the millennials, also known as Generation Y, are most often defined as people who were born in the early 1980s to the early 1990s. There is 80 million of them, larger than any other generation, and by 2025 will make up 75 percent of the workforce, according to some projections.

No matter your impression of millennials, they are our future and businesses must adjust and train them properly.

Stay tuned to this space to learn how.

Oh, and for those looking for the answer to “When was it said?”

The quote was paraphrased from a play written by Aristophanes in 423 B.C.

The quote is most often attributed to Socrates, but any millennial would have gone down the web rabbit hole and learned that’s actually not the case. :)

Travis Henry

Chief Product & Content Officer