Research Says…Millennials Desire Meaning

I’ve been laying low for a few days trying to break my Internet addiction and give my mind some rest from the last class (earned a B+, by the way). This morning I popped by the WordPress Stats page in my admin section and saw a spike in hits. What is this spike? It was a bunch of clicks from a recent Yahoo! Finance article by Anya Kamenetz titled Whose American Dream Is It, Anyway?

The article cites my Lit Review on the Millennial generation as substance for the following quote:

Money and security are important, but research says young people really want meaning in their jobs, too.

Anya was kind enough to read my research and use it for her work on Y! Finance. Doing my research Anya has quite a record of speaking and writing on the Millennials and I am impressed she felt my work worthy. Further validation that I am on the right track.

I would like to clarify and extend the quote by adding some important information about my feelings on meaning. Specifically by extracting that section of the lit. review section.

Meaning is an important element in Millennial work expectations (Allen, 2004; Martin, 2005); this generation expects the work being done to be social responsible (Martin) and important to the business (Eisner, 2005). Similarly, Millennials distaste being assigned work considered as chores or menial; preferring tasks important to the success of the organization (Eisner). The expectation of meaningful work relates to the Millennials’ lack of inherent loyalty to employers (Allen; Hulett, 2006). Rather this generation of employees aligns with organizations that best fit the need for balance and meaning (Allen; Hulett).

References can be sent or posted if you would like them, I just don’t want to clutter up the post.

What is seen here is that the Millennials really are looking for things to do that have value and meaning. This does not mean that they are looking for every task to be linked to a global steward level of importance. It means that this generation are looking for jobs, tasks, roles, and responsibilities that are important to the person, the organization (think strategic alignment), and community/marketplace/industry.

Anya, thanks for using my research for your resource.

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