My company just published a survey about the expectations of generation Y regarding work. To summarize:
- Millennials expect to work overseas - Millennials expect job mobility and want the opportunity to experience overseas assignments.
- Sustainability and climate change - Today's recruits will choose employers who have corporate social responsibility (CSR) values that reflect their own.
- Technology and the ability to network - Millennials view technology as key to socializing and networking and believe it will change the way they work.
- Work place flexibility - Only a small percentage of millennials expect flexibilities such as working at home and outside regular office hours.
- Sharing personal information - Millennials are comfortable about giving employers greater access to their personal information in the interests of personal and business security.
- Millennial views on portfolio careers - The idea of employees job hopping in a portfolio working arrangement is not likely to become a reality for millennials.
- Employee loyalty - Millennials express loyalty to the organization they work for, but by no means are they willing to commit to blind loyalty.
- Training and development - Training and development is the benefit the millennials value most highly--particularly coaching and mentoring.
- Retirement - Millennials have accepted the idea that neither the state nor the employer will fund their retirement.
- Thoughts on 2020 - Millennials envision a world where China, India and Russia will have more economic influence than the US and Europe and believe that companies will be more influential than governments by 2020.
Points 3 and 8 are encouraging. Points 4 and 6 are surprising. Points 5 and 9 are scary.
