This report defines the past four generations as:

It is interesting to note the summary given in the Gen Up report for Generation Y:

‘While born in the era leading up to the recession of 1990, there is no doubt that accessible technology has played a huge role in shaping this generation. ‘Silicon economics’ meant cheaper consumable goods, schools had growing IT departments and PCs were commonplace tools at work. The capitalist drive in this era for Baby Boomers and Generation X, had a profound effect. Privatisation, ‘Greed is good’ and Yuppies with Filofaxes sum up the workplace for Babyboomers. For Generation Y in the UK, Thatcherism would completely dominate their formative years.’

The Generation Y preferences:

‘Gen Y commonly blurs the lines between socializing and work’

‘Generaton Y seek to be part of a team, have fun and make new friends.’

N.B: A quick cautionary note

The authors of the ‘Gen Up’, have added a cautionary note; they ‘do not recommend that an organisation takes the evidence from our research to then ‘label’ people and make assumptions about their attitudes.’

The ‘Gen Up’ report compares attitudes between the above four generations under the following headings:

• Retention and loyalty

According the report ‘Gen X and Y may ‘demand’ more flexible hours and are less likely to take a long term career view with the organisation’. However, ‘nearly half of Gen Y intend to be with their current employer in five years time and one in four expects  to change jobs every two to three years....So the commonly held belief that Gen Y is easy to recruit, hard to retain may not be strictly true.’

• Driving Customer Service

‘Gen Y are more positive about service being recognised than other generations’, although ‘16% of Gen Y are not at all interested in customer service being part of their role.’

• Performance Management

‘Gen Y is much less tolerant of under-performance. Nearly one in five Gen Ys believe that the best solution for under-performance is for someone to be fired’.

• Mobile and Flexible Working

‘As a generation, Gen Y are the first to truly adopt technology to manage their life/work balance as the boundaries of office and personal life become blurred.’

• Internal communication

‘Gen Y is actually the most positive generation about communication. They may be expected to be more demanding of internal communication given the fact that they are used to ‘information at their fingertips’.

• Leadership and Management

‘Gen Y may find that older generations demonstrate less trust for senior management. Gen Y are also more likely to rate senior mangers well including the fact that they make work priorities clear.’ The report also finds that ‘Gen Y are the most trusting of the organisation as they have not been exposed to significant downsizing or economic uncertainty.’ This characteristic may now be subject to change, however, with the effects of the current recession.

• Career development

‘Gen Y may find some generational conflict in terms of career development’.

’Gen Y may find development conversations with other Gen Y much easier to manage – conversations are likely to stretch beyond the current organisation’. The Baby Boomer may be surprised at the ‘self- sufficiency’ of Gen Y as they expect to manage their own career development’.

• Gen Y may appreciate instant feedback and praise; they are more used to receiving praise during adolescence and university. To other generations this amount of praise may seem patronising.
• Self-sufficiency when it comes to meeting new groups of people. Through social networking and online forums and communities, Gen Y are happy to spend hours online. They will find friends and information they need over the net.
• The Gen Up report states that ‘The veteran may find Gen Y colleagues difficult to retain. The Veteran may be surprised that the Gen Y employee is willing to work longer hours for more pay or flexibility. They may be equally surprised therefore that the Gen Y employee may also expect to change job every 2-3 years. The Veteran should note that Gen Y employees will consider leaving if their colleagues are made redundant’
• Work-life balance, both Gen X and Gen Y appreciate a good work-life balance and so may not be as willing to work as many hours as some Baby Boomers. This might cause a clash with older colleagues (who also have different attitudes to mobile/flexible working).
• The Gen Up report states that a possible source of general conflict from a Baby Boomer’s perspective is that Gen Y expects ‘pay to be based on ‘good performance rather than time served’.