Originally posted here (Spanish) in 2017.

Being a part of Generation X today means being aware that Generation Y is the culmination of many things we always wanted.

Having worked with them for quite a while now, and becoming younger every day, has helped me understand their lifestyle, what they want, what they don’t want, how they are professionally immature in some aspects, how education isn’t harnessing their unlimited access to information. Above all, it has made me realize that on a corporate level, companies are reluctant to adapt to them.

When I talk about adapting, I’m not referring to hiring someone under 28 years old to be a marketing manager just because “we need to understand the Millennial market” or “be prepared because Millennials will have high turnover rates.” I mean that companies didn’t include in their projections the cost of creating a different business model where this generation contributes their best and doesn’t just want to leave after eight months.

Adapting to the Millennial workforce means understanding that their priorities are different from those of us who grew up in the ’80s. Their personal growth comes before their professional growth, although the two should go hand in hand, and companies should help make that happen.

Why?

Over time, I’ve realized that it’s less profitable to change personnel every six months, and it’s not just about the economic aspect: it’s tiring to retrain and educate staff in a field because they lack necessary or appropriate experience.

We’re living in a time when we see more information about them every day, understanding them, the challenges of working with them, and the uncertainty about their business future (since they don’t display the same passion as us Gen-Xers).

What’s it like working day-to-day with a team of Millennials?

Today, the workforce is full of them. In my last five years of professional life, I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with them—the ones we used to call Generation Y—and it has been a very refreshing experience.

My generation, Generation X, was taught to work with a single goal in mind, at one place for years to achieve promotions and perhaps, to start a business at some point. But starting a business wasn’t the ultimate goal. For “Millennials,” entrepreneurship is perhaps their primary goal: having the power to create and feeling ownership of what they do and their life.

What has a good “Y” group taught me in recent years?

There is life, and it’s not confined to work.

While we should love what we do, the most important thing is to love life, knowing that we work to live and don’t live just to work. We can’t blame them for wanting to go to the movies or go out on weekends. Let’s follow their example and break our work mold.

Business is not their priority because no one has shown them.

The priorities of a board of directors are not theirs. I’ve encountered young people who are genuinely uninterested, and I didn’t understand why. One day, I decided to explain the business of advertising to them, and while some fell asleep, others were interested. Today, many are making a difference in their businesses or other companies.

Education is trapped in an outdated format.

Universities try to provide the best for students, but they solve it by providing the best and latest technology, the best structural conditions, but they don’t focus on giving the best thing that can be given to a generation that has grown up with unlimited access to information: intellectual development.

Educational institutions must question what they offer now. Much can be learned through Google, and it only takes an opportunity to put it into practice.

Companies didn’t prepare for their arrival.

The majority of companies didn’t want, don’t want, or won’t want to see what comes with them. While it’s true that it will take another 10 to 15 years before this workforce takes control of companies entirely, the time to start looking at structural models is now.

Managers are afraid of them, but they aren’t afraid of managers.

They will entail many changes, and that’s why managers don’t want them to arrive. As Gastón Bigio said, change means changing people, and that costs money.

These young people have come to stay. Today, we know that much of what we wanted is reflected in them, and much of what they want will shape Generation Z, or as they call them now, the “Centennials.”