WEBVTT - Do Boomers and Gen-Xers Really Work Harder Than Millennials?

0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:07.000
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,

0:00:07.040 --> 0:00:10.400
<v Speaker 1>Lauren voc obam here. Thanks to popular books like Generation

0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:13.200
<v Speaker 1>Me and A Rash of Kids these days cover stories

0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:16.680
<v Speaker 1>and major magazines, it's easy to believe that millennials, usually

0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:20.279
<v Speaker 1>defined as people born between one and nineteen nine, are

0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:23.400
<v Speaker 1>wildly different than their co workers from Generation X born

0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:26.600
<v Speaker 1>between nineteen sixty five and nineteen eighty and the Baby

0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:30.240
<v Speaker 1>Boomer generation that's nineteen forty six to nineteen sixty four.

0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:34.320
<v Speaker 1>Employers have so much faith in the millennial mythology that

0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:38.320
<v Speaker 1>they've changed the way they recruit, higher, train, and develop employees.

0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:42.320
<v Speaker 1>Teams of well paid consultants have convinced CEOs that millennials

0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:46.040
<v Speaker 1>represent an entirely new species of worker that's less focused,

0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:48.959
<v Speaker 1>less loyal, and far less willing to work hard than

0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:54.000
<v Speaker 1>preceding generations. But is it really true. When researchers have

0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:56.320
<v Speaker 1>gone digging for hard data to back up the negative

0:00:56.360 --> 0:01:00.360
<v Speaker 1>stereotypes of millennial workers, they've repeatedly come up empty. The

0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:03.600
<v Speaker 1>real explanation for the perceived differences between the work ethic

0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:07.160
<v Speaker 1>and commitment of millennials versus exers versus boomers has much

0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:08.680
<v Speaker 1>less to do with the year that they were born

0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:12.479
<v Speaker 1>versus the age on their driver's license. If you're thinking,

0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:17.000
<v Speaker 1>isn't that the same thing, Well, not exactly. We spoke

0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:21.280
<v Speaker 1>with David Costanza, Associate professor of psychology and organizational sciences

0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:24.720
<v Speaker 1>at George Washington University, who co authored an influential study

0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:29.720
<v Speaker 1>on generational differences in He explains that generational assignments like

0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:33.120
<v Speaker 1>boomer or millennial are somewhat arbitrary, but age is a

0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:37.240
<v Speaker 1>strong predictor of work experience, and more experienced and tenured

0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:39.880
<v Speaker 1>workers tend to have a stronger work ethic and more

0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:43.280
<v Speaker 1>corporate loyalty than younger workers. In other words, being a

0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:46.199
<v Speaker 1>boomer is a weaker predictor of work ethic than simply

0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:50.320
<v Speaker 1>being sixty five. Castanza said, if you look back twenty

0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:53.480
<v Speaker 1>forty or sixty years, the same pattern of differences shows

0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:56.400
<v Speaker 1>up again and again. The youngest generation is always the

0:01:56.440 --> 0:02:00.320
<v Speaker 1>least dedicated, the least satisfied, and the most mobile. Twenty

0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:03.200
<v Speaker 1>years ago, that was Generation X. Forty years ago, it

0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:07.560
<v Speaker 1>was the boomers. Now it's the millennials. For example, an

0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:10.920
<v Speaker 1>article published in the American Sociological Review in nineteen sixty

0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:14.960
<v Speaker 1>one bemoaned the decaying system of values apparent in people's

0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:18.240
<v Speaker 1>work ethic. The argument went that the so called Protestant

0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:20.960
<v Speaker 1>work ethic, the belief in the importance of hard work

0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:23.480
<v Speaker 1>and a disapproval of too much leisure time and activities,

0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:26.400
<v Speaker 1>was responsible for the economic success of Europe and the

0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:30.440
<v Speaker 1>United States. But apparently there was widespread consensus that the

0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:34.040
<v Speaker 1>younger generation of Midwestern farmers were straying from the rugged

0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:37.560
<v Speaker 1>self reliance of their fathers and quote finding meaning and

0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:41.680
<v Speaker 1>strength through constant associations with others rather than themselves. They

0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:45.799
<v Speaker 1>were also quote shameless consumers. Just imagine if those farmers

0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:49.320
<v Speaker 1>that had Facebook and Amazon Prime. A new study from

0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:52.720
<v Speaker 1>Wayne State University backs up Costanza's conclusion that age is

0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:55.400
<v Speaker 1>a much better predictor of work attitudes than being a

0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:59.639
<v Speaker 1>millennial or boomer. The researchers performed an in depth meta

0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:03.280
<v Speaker 1>annelis of seventy seven work ethic studies published between nineteen

0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:06.960
<v Speaker 1>sixty and twenty fifteen, and they found absolutely no empirical

0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:09.960
<v Speaker 1>difference between the responses of say, eighteen to twenty two

0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:12.919
<v Speaker 1>year old college students in nineteen sixty eight versus two

0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:16.720
<v Speaker 1>thousand eight regarding the Protestant work ethic. The real change

0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:20.280
<v Speaker 1>happens as these young punks get older and more experienced.

0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:23.119
<v Speaker 1>The authors suggest that when the current group of millennials

0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:25.440
<v Speaker 1>has aged forty years, they'll think the new kids are

0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:29.040
<v Speaker 1>lazy too. The most important takeaway from this research is

0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:32.280
<v Speaker 1>that the popular public perception of lazy millennials is not

0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:35.960
<v Speaker 1>only inaccurate, it's also bad for business, because Stanza said,

0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:39.760
<v Speaker 1>it leads to these sweeping generalizations that can prompt organizations

0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:42.920
<v Speaker 1>to make these really poor decisions and to invest in training,

0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:46.840
<v Speaker 1>development or compensation systems that don't do any good. If

0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.960
<v Speaker 1>managers are telling the CEO that younger employees don't seem

0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:52.760
<v Speaker 1>to be engaged and committed to their work, that's definitely

0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:57.520
<v Speaker 1>a problem, but it's not a millennial problem. Becustanza equates

0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:00.240
<v Speaker 1>the millennial myth with these stereotypes that employer has had

0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:03.040
<v Speaker 1>about women workers half a century ago, that there was

0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:05.840
<v Speaker 1>no point promoting a woman to a management position because

0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:09.040
<v Speaker 1>she would eventually get married, have kids, and leave, or

0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:13.000
<v Speaker 1>the painful racial and ethnic stereotypes historically faced by minority workers.

0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:17.159
<v Speaker 1>Because Danza said, if workers aren't committed, or they're not satisfied,

0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:19.680
<v Speaker 1>or they're not sticking around, find out why that is

0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:22.600
<v Speaker 1>and address it. Don't rely on these myths and stereotypes.

0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:30.280
<v Speaker 1>Today's episode was written by Dave Ruse and produced by

0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:32.640
<v Speaker 1>Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other

0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:35.800
<v Speaker 1>productive topics, visit our home planet, how Stuff Works dot

0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:47.279
<v Speaker 1>com