Millennials at Work: What We Know and What We Need to Do (If Anything)

Abstract

There are a lot of opinions about who Millennials are, what they think and value, and how they will behave as they grow older and gain more experience in the workforce. The relatively sparse empirical research published on Millennials is confusing at best and contradictory at worst. As noted in this article and others in this special issue, however, there are a few topics including work attitudes, long-term health outcomes, and personality factors on which we have reasonably solid data to inform us about current and likely future behavior of Millennials. We address the importance of context for understanding behavior of people in different generations, a subject often missing from the discussion of generational similarities and differences. There are implications for practitioners of what we know and for how context affects behavior. We make suggestions for how practitioners can use the data available to inform decisions they make about working with Millennials. Finally, we discuss the importance of new directions of research on generational differences to help both practitioners and the research community better understand the realities of generational similarities and differences and rely less on urban myths or stereotypes.