Abstract:

Millennials represent the high school graduating class of 2000 (Howe & Strauss, 2000), and the trailing edge of this cohort has been called the Me Generation (Eisner, 2005; Twenge, 2006). The Me Generation is composed of people who are now in the later stages of university education and very early stages of their career, born around 1990. These are the children primarily of Gen Y parents. The Me Generation is widely reported to be distinctly different from Generation X, Y, and possibly the leading edge Millennials themselves (Pew Research Center, 2010; Myers, 2010; Twenge, 2006). The Me Generation is the most immediate group of new employees now facing organizations.

Technology and global events have changed the manner in which this group communicates and is educated (Li & Bernoff, 2008; Lenhart, 2009). Nationally, almost 100% of college students in this cohort own a communications device of some sort (“Survey Finds,” 2009). They live in a world where 84% of them have internet access at home, most own a cell phone, and 87% of them text message daily (Roberts, Foehr, & Rideout, 2005). One third of all entering college students have blogs (Pryor, Hurtado, DeAngelo, Black, & Tran, 2010). The Me Generation brought us multi-tasking. They use electronic media 7.5 hours a day and pack 10.75 hours into exposure to that media by multi-tasking (Roberts et al., 2005). They text, Facebook, Tweet, Google, download You Tube, Podcast, talk, and watch course lectures on their Droid phones, doing all of this while walking to class with an umbilical cord they call ear buds embedded in their ears. They incorrectly believe they are very efficient at multitasking (Abate, 2008; Gorlick, 2009).

Downing (2006) and Twenge (2006) identified the historical events that shaped Millennials and the Me Generation. They grew up watching the Twin Towers fall in New York on September 11, 2001. They have lived with an ongoing war between the United States, Iraq, and Afghanistan most of their lives. The watched the financial crisis impact their parents’ daily lives and their own standard of living. This group understands that 25% of workers today work for a company they have been employed with for less than one year. This group knows that 50% of employees today have been working at their current job for less than five years. The Me Generation has been called the “instant generation” that feels entitled. They expect academic grades of A’s and B’s. They want everything now.

The Me Generation is of profound importance to institutions of higher education (Eisner, 2005) as this is the next cohort they will have prepared for organizations to manage, immediately. There are strategic opportunities for firms that will leverage the competencies of this group in their value chain. In order to harness this resource it is necessary to better understand them. How universities prepare these individuals for the workforce as well as how organizations prepare to embrace this generation is paramount.

Keywords:

Millennials, Expectations, Fears, Higher Education, Workplace.