Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren voc obam here. Thanks to popular books like Generation
Speaker 1: Me and A Rash of Kids these days cover stories
Speaker 1: and major magazines, it's easy to believe that millennials, usually
Speaker 1: defined as people born between one and nineteen nine, are
Speaker 1: wildly different than their co workers from Generation X born
Speaker 1: between nineteen sixty five and nineteen eighty and the Baby
Speaker 1: Boomer generation that's nineteen forty six to nineteen sixty four.
Speaker 1: Employers have so much faith in the millennial mythology that
Speaker 1: they've changed the way they recruit, higher, train, and develop employees.
Speaker 1: Teams of well paid consultants have convinced CEOs that millennials
Speaker 1: represent an entirely new species of worker that's less focused,
Speaker 1: less loyal, and far less willing to work hard than
Speaker 1: preceding generations. But is it really true. When researchers have
Speaker 1: gone digging for hard data to back up the negative
Speaker 1: stereotypes of millennial workers, they've repeatedly come up empty. The
Speaker 1: real explanation for the perceived differences between the work ethic
Speaker 1: and commitment of millennials versus exers versus boomers has much
Speaker 1: less to do with the year that they were born
Speaker 1: versus the age on their driver's license. If you're thinking,
Speaker 1: isn't that the same thing, Well, not exactly. We spoke
Speaker 1: with David Costanza, Associate professor of psychology and organizational sciences
Speaker 1: at George Washington University, who co authored an influential study
Speaker 1: on generational differences in He explains that generational assignments like
Speaker 1: boomer or millennial are somewhat arbitrary, but age is a
Speaker 1: strong predictor of work experience, and more experienced and tenured
Speaker 1: workers tend to have a stronger work ethic and more
Speaker 1: corporate loyalty than younger workers. In other words, being a
Speaker 1: boomer is a weaker predictor of work ethic than simply
Speaker 1: being sixty five. Castanza said, if you look back twenty
Speaker 1: forty or sixty years, the same pattern of differences shows
Speaker 1: up again and again. The youngest generation is always the
Speaker 1: least dedicated, the least satisfied, and the most mobile. Twenty
Speaker 1: years ago, that was Generation X. Forty years ago, it
Speaker 1: was the boomers. Now it's the millennials. For example, an
Speaker 1: article published in the American Sociological Review in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: one bemoaned the decaying system of values apparent in people's
Speaker 1: work ethic. The argument went that the so called Protestant
Speaker 1: work ethic, the belief in the importance of hard work
Speaker 1: and a disapproval of too much leisure time and activities,
Speaker 1: was responsible for the economic success of Europe and the
Speaker 1: United States. But apparently there was widespread consensus that the
Speaker 1: younger generation of Midwestern farmers were straying from the rugged
Speaker 1: self reliance of their fathers and quote finding meaning and
Speaker 1: strength through constant associations with others rather than themselves. They
Speaker 1: were also quote shameless consumers. Just imagine if those farmers
Speaker 1: that had Facebook and Amazon Prime. A new study from
Speaker 1: Wayne State University backs up Costanza's conclusion that age is
Speaker 1: a much better predictor of work attitudes than being a
Speaker 1: millennial or boomer. The researchers performed an in depth meta
Speaker 1: annelis of seventy seven work ethic studies published between nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty and twenty fifteen, and they found absolutely no empirical
Speaker 1: difference between the responses of say, eighteen to twenty two
Speaker 1: year old college students in nineteen sixty eight versus two
Speaker 1: thousand eight regarding the Protestant work ethic. The real change
Speaker 1: happens as these young punks get older and more experienced.
Speaker 1: The authors suggest that when the current group of millennials
Speaker 1: has aged forty years, they'll think the new kids are
Speaker 1: lazy too. The most important takeaway from this research is
Speaker 1: that the popular public perception of lazy millennials is not
Speaker 1: only inaccurate, it's also bad for business, because Stanza said,
Speaker 1: it leads to these sweeping generalizations that can prompt organizations
Speaker 1: to make these really poor decisions and to invest in training,
Speaker 1: development or compensation systems that don't do any good. If
Speaker 1: managers are telling the CEO that younger employees don't seem
Speaker 1: to be engaged and committed to their work, that's definitely
Speaker 1: a problem, but it's not a millennial problem. Becustanza equates
Speaker 1: the millennial myth with these stereotypes that employer has had
Speaker 1: about women workers half a century ago, that there was
Speaker 1: no point promoting a woman to a management position because
Speaker 1: she would eventually get married, have kids, and leave, or
Speaker 1: the painful racial and ethnic stereotypes historically faced by minority workers.
Speaker 1: Because Danza said, if workers aren't committed, or they're not satisfied,
Speaker 1: or they're not sticking around, find out why that is
Speaker 1: and address it. Don't rely on these myths and stereotypes.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Dave Ruse and produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other
Speaker 1: productive topics, visit our home planet, how Stuff Works dot
Speaker 1: com