The Entitlement Generation: revolutionary or just spoiled?

Evan Wayne, 24, thought he was prepared for anything in a recent interview for a job in radio sales.

Then the interviewer hit the Chicagoan with this: “So, we call you guys the 'Entitlement Generation,'” the baby boomer executive said, expressing an oft-heard view of today's young work force. “You think you're entitled to everything.”
Such labeling is, perhaps, a rite of passage for every crop of twenty-somethings. In their day, baby boomers were rabble-rousing hippies, while Gen Xers were apathetic slackers.
Now, deserved or not, this latest generation is being pegged, too — as one with shockingly high expectations for salary, job flexibility and duties but little willingness to take on grunt work or remain loyal to a company.

“We're seeing an epidemic of people who are having a hard time making the transition to work — kids who had too much success early in life and who've become accustomed to instant gratification,” said Dr. Mel Levine, a pediatrics professor at the University of North Carolina Medical School and author of a book on the topic called “Ready or Not, Here Life Comes.”
While Levine also notes that today's twenty-somethings are long on idealism and altruism, “many of the individuals we see are heavily committed to something we call 'fun.'”
He partly faults coddling parents and colleges for doing little to prepare students for the realities of adulthood and setting the course for what many disillusioned twenty-somethings are increasingly calling their “quarter-life crisis.”
Meanwhile, employers from corporate executives to restaurateurs and retailers are frustrated.

“It seems they want and expect everything that the 20- or 30-year veteran has the first week they're there,” said Mike Amos of Salt Lake City, a franchise consultant for Perkins Restaurants.
Just about any twenty-something will tell you they know someone like this, and may even have some of those high expectations themselves.
Wayne had this response for his interviewer at the radio station: “Maybe we were spoiled by your generation. But I think the word 'entitled' isn't necessarily the word,” he said. “Do we think we're deserving if we're going to go out there and bust our ass for you? Yes.”

He ended up getting the job, and vows to work hard.

Some experts who study young people think having some expectations, and setting limits with bosses, isn't necessarily negative.
“It's true they're not eager to bury themselves in a cubicle and take orders from bosses for the next 40 years, and why should they?” asked Jeffrey Arnett, a psychologist at the University of Maryland who has written a book on “emerging adulthood,” the period between age 18 and 25.
“They have a healthy skepticism of the commitment their employers have to them and the commitment they owe to their employers.”
Many young people also want to avoid becoming just another cog who works for a faceless giant.
Anthony DeBetta of New York works with other twenty-somethings at a small marketing firm. He says the company's size makes him feel like he can make a difference.
“We have a vested interest in the growth of this firm,” said DeBetta, 23.
Elsewhere, Liz Ryan speculates that a more relaxed work environment at the company she runs — no set hours and “a lot of latitude in how our work gets done” — helps inspire her younger employees.

“Maybe twenty-somethings have figured out something that boomers like me took two decades to piece together: namely, that there's more to life than by-the-book traditional career success,” said Ryan, 45, the chief executive of a Colorado-based company called WorldWIT, an online and off-line networking group for professional women.
As much as some employers would like to resist the trend, a growing number are searching for ways to retain twenty-something employees — and to figure out what makes them tick.
“The manager who says I don't have time for that is going to be stuck on the endless turnover treadmill,” said Eric Chester, a Colorado-based consultant who works with corporations to understand what he calls “kidployees,” ages 16 to 24.
At Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, for instance, administrators have developed an internship with mentoring and more training for young nurses that has curbed turnover by more than 50 percent and raised job satisfaction.
Amos at Perkins Restaurants says small changes also have helped — loosening standards on piercings or allowing cooks to play music in the kitchen.

And Muvico, a company with movie theaters in a few Southern states, gives sporting goods and music gift certificates to young staffers who go beyond minimum duties.
“If you just expect them to stand behind a register and smile, they're not going to do that unless you tell them why that's important and then recognize them for it,” said John Spano, Muvico's human resources director.
Still others are focusing on getting twenty-somethings more prepared.
Neil Heyse, an instructor at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, has started a company called MyGuidewire to provide career coaching for young people.

“It's a hot issue, and I think it's getting hotter all the time,” Heyse said of work readiness. “There's a great amount of anxiety beneath the surface.”

Martha Irvine
4 July 2005

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