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Why are Millennials so…

Wiseman - Millennials

Narcissistic. Entitled. Distracted. Lazy. Most people who know me wouldn’t use those words to describe me (but they would likely say I’m obsessed with food). However, they are words often used to describe my fellow generation of Millennials (surprise! I’m as young as I look). Nearly every time I visit LinkedIn, I come across an article declaring why you should fear Millennials in the workplace or an infographic displaying what horrible people we are compared to Baby Boomers.

Lucky for me, Lynda Patterson, president/owner of AMPED, has recognized all of the great things about Millennials. Really—go take a look at how fresh-faced we are (please don’t guess which one of us are really Millennials and which ones have just discovered the fountain of youth). Here is the gist of actual conversation between Lynda and me after she returned from a conference with other AMC owners:

Lynda: You are a Millennial, right?
Me: Yes.
Lynda: Shouldn’t I be scared of you?
Me: No.
Lynda: I didn’t think so. I just got back from hearing other executives gripe about how Millennials are so difficult to work with and I couldn’t understand what they were talking about!

Let’s go over a few reasons why you should take a page from the AMPED playbook and not be afraid of Millennials as employees and colleagues:

We are smart …
Do I sound narcissistic? Yes. But it’s true! According to a study by the Pew Research Center, Millennials are the “best educated group of young adults in US history”—1/3 of us have earned at least a four-year college degree. We also started school right as tuition rates exploded, which likely means we actually want to learn. Why else would we take on an average of $30,000 in debt?

… and want to continue to learn.
Some Millennials may be freshly out of college, but learning is still our top priority. A survey from the UNC Kenan-Flager Business School for Forbes revealed that 65% of Millennials rank personal development as the most influential factor in our current jobs and 22% see training and development as the most valued benefit. In an EdAssist study of Millennials, 60% would pick a job with the potential for continued professional development over one with promised pay raises. The same study revealed that Millennials will stay at a company longer for access to learning. At AMPED, we are encouraged to pursue higher education and are even reimbursed for courses related to our jobs.

We are efficient …
We may be “technology obsessed,” but it has made us pretty darn efficient. If we expect everything to be on-demand, we better be on-demand ourselves. Our tech-savviness allows us to focus on the big picture and not get hung up on the technical details of a task. But we don’t always need to rely on technology! Part of the reason we prefer face-to-face meetings over a phone call or email is because a) we are collaborative and b) face-to-face is so much more efficient! There’s no need to go back-and-forth fifty times over email; let’s just get together and get stuff done!

… and great at multitasking.
Okay, fine. Apparently multitasking isn’t really a thing. We are “serial taskers,” our brains can quickly switch from task-to-task (sounds pretty efficient to me). This especially comes in handy when working in an environment such as an AMC, doing various tasks for several different client associations and needing to “flip the switch” as soon as a phone call comes in for a different client.

The next time you come across the typical “Millennials are scary!” article, keep in mind that we aren’t that bad. We also brought you Snapchat, Facebook, Airbnb, and Groupon.

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