Introduction
Every generation provides a particular impact on the labour market. At present, Millennials make the most significant part of the workforce. Thus, they influence the employment situation over the world. Similar to any other generation, Millennials share some common features which influence their behaviour. The knowledge of these peculiarities by managers can contribute to a better understanding of Millennials’ needs and thus increase their efficiency as employees.
Background
Contemporary world is characterised with a diversity of a workforce. The principles of tolerance and equality result in hiring employees disregarding their race, gender, age or social status. The youngest part of a workforce includes the generation known as Millennials. In fact, they constitute the majority of employees today. The researchers are not unanimous about the time limits for millennial generation (DelCampo et al. 2011; Hays 2014; Kuron et al. 2014). The widest range for the Millennial generation is estimated between 1980 and 2000. Millennials are also known as “Generation Y,” “Nexters,” and “Generation Me” (Kuron et al. 2014, p. 992). As of 2015, there were 54 million Millennials in the workforce which is 35 percent of all the employees (Espinoza & Ukleja 2016, p. 3). The prognoses are that by 2025 Millennials will make three quarters of the world employees (Espinoza & Ukleja 2016, p. 4). Consequently, a manager should know the peculiarities of this group and be able to apply them in the process of hiring and work organization.
Hypothesis
Scholars agree that Millennials share similar features (DelCampo et al. 2011; Hays 2014; Kuron et al. 2014). They have particular expectations and different set of values. It is supposed that these and other discrepancies influence their attitude to work and career. Thus, the hypothesis of this study is that the peculiar features of Millennials influence their behaviour as a work force.
Research Questions and Tasks
The research has the following questions to answer:
- Are there common features in Millennials attitudes to choice of work?
- What are the values common to the Millennial generation?
- What are the expectations and perspectives of Millennials as a workforce?
The final task of the study is to develop efficient strategies which can be applied by managers who work with Millennials as employees. These strategies will be grounded on the research findings.
Research Rationale
A contemporary research of Millennials as a workforce is a demand of time. There are earlier investigations on the problem but they cover the representatives of this generation born before 1990es. The interest of this study is in the younger representatives of Millennials who are starting their careers or just graduating. They make the majority of the contemporary workforce and dealing with them is a primary concern of managers.
Methodological Approach
Current research is a qualitative phenomenological study. It uses an inductive approach which presupposes observation of the existing theories and investigations. The research includes the analysis of previous studies’ findings which helps to highlight the peculiarities of Millennials as a workforce. The study uses qualitative methods which are characteristic of the inductive approach. The researcher is expected to generate strategies for managers working with Millennial employees after the analysis of the collected data. A semi-formal interview is considered a suitable strategy for this kind of investigation. Interview is a flexible method and allows obtaining more details. The study will use a semi-structured interview. It is convenient due to its flexibility. The questions are designed to reveal the peculiar features of Millennials who are college and university graduates or young employees in the beginning of their careers. The interest for the research is the newest coming workforce and its peculiarities. This data will be used to design managerial strategies aimed at the improvement of work with Millennial employees to provide positive work experience and performance.
The paper consists of the following chapters:
Introduction provides some background information including research interests and problems, research questions, methodological approach and the dissertation structure.
Literature Review presents the investigation of the studies dedicated to Millennials as a workforce. The peculiarities of their education, work expectations, system of values, challenges for employers and managers, features of recruiting and managing Millennials at work, and the perspectives of the Millennial generation at work. This chapter also provides opportunities for further research.
The next chapter is dedicated to the Research Methodology. It includes research philosophy, approach, strategy, instruments, sampling, peculiarities of data collection, and considerations of research ethics. Moreover, it presents the procedures of data collection and analysis. Finally, this chapter discusses the research reliability, validity, and possible limitations.
Chapter 4 reveals the findings and the results of research. It summarises key findings and presents the data obtained in the process of interview.
Chapter 5 is devoted to discussion and analysis of the research findings. It discusses the opportunities of the results’ implementation. This chapter also includes the strategies suggested by a researcher which can be used by managers to deal with Millennials at the workplace.
Chapter 6 includes conclusion and recommendations. It summarizes the results and findings, provider recommendations on their application, and analyses limitations of the research and provides suggestions for future studies.
The appendices include sample questions for the interview.
Research Methodology
This qualitative phenomenological research aims to investigate the peculiar features of Millennials as a workforce. Millennials who constitute almost half of the world employees, will make more than 75 percent of the working people by 2025 (Espinoza & Ukleja 2016, p. 4). Millennial generation possesses unique values such as career development, keeping life and work balance, interesting work, worthy payment, etc. (DelCampo et al. 2011; DeVaney 2015; Kuron et al. 2015). These values influence their behaviour as employees and the choices they make when looking for a job. Thus, managers need specific approaches to deal with Millennial employees. Millennials are more entitled (Allen et al. 2015), capable of using modern technologies (DelCampo et al. 2011); ambitious, achievement-concentrated, and self-confident (Smith & Nichols 2015). However, the previous researches provide data on Millennials who have already started their career. They can be called “earlier Millennials” and were more influenced by the previous generations. The second wave of this generation, born on the eve of Millennium, is graduating the colleges and universities and is in search of jobs. They will enter the workforce in the recent two decades and are likely to change it. Consequently, managers will have to deal with new employees who may demonstrate behaviour different from that of Millennials of earlier years. They will need support to manage a new wave of workers. Thus, then efficient strategies of managing Millennials based on relevant and recent research data are necessary.
Research Philosophy
The current research is grounded on the philosophy of interpretivism. Interpretivist approach uses mainly naturalistic methods of data collection such as observations and interviews. It is common for investigations in social sciences. It presupposes the interpretation of the obtained data and the interest of a researcher. Usually, the research aims to understand a certain phenomenon and predict some development. It suits the goal of the current investigation which is to reveal the peculiarities of Millennial generation as workforce. Although subjective, interpretivism is a suitable philosophy for qualitative researches.
Research Approach
The research implies an inductive approach. It includes the study of the existing theories and investigations. Moreover, inductive approach allows formulation of a theory after the research. It empowers the task of the current research which is to design strategies to manage Millennials as the workforce. It can be executed after the study of existing ways and methods and interpretation of the interview results. After the data collection and analysis, the researcher is expected to generate strategies that can be used by managers in work with Millennial workforce.
Research Strategy
The study organization depends on a research strategy. It has an impact on the validity and reliability of research findings. An interview is a suitable strategy for this kind of investigation. A semi-formal interview is a suitable method to use in this research. It is helpful when there is no possibility to observe behaviour and people’s interpretation of things directly or the researcher is interested in past experiences (Merriam & Tisdell 2016). Interview is a flexible method and allows obtaining more details (Lune & Berg 2017). However, its disadvantages are that it is usually time-consuming both in conduction and data analysis due to the necessity to process data manually. Moreover, it can be expensive. Also, if a face-to-face interview is selected, it does not allow to cover a big sample. Nevertheless, with appropriately structured questions, an interview can provide enough data for analysis.
Research Instruments
Thus, interview will be used to provide the data for research. It will be a semi-structured interview because it allows flexibility of questions and the opportunity to adjust them to any respondent (Harreveld et al. 2016). Consequently, interview questions will be the major research instrument. The interview is a preferable method when there is need in personal opinions or perceptions of respondents. It allows clarifications in the case of ambiguities. Moreover, due to the individual character of the interview, the respondents are not influenced by any external factors such as other participants if the research is conducted in a group. Before the interview, some demographic data such as age and sex will be collected to provide statistic for the sample. The questions will be designed to cover the peculiarities of Millennial generation representatives who are graduating or have already started work recently. The research is interested in the newest coming workforce and its specific features since they may be different from the representatives of Millennial generations who already have more work experience.
Population and Sample
The research population comprises the Millennial generation. More precisely, the research will investigate the representatives of Millennial generation born within the period from 1990 to 1998. Thus, the age range will be from 19 to 27. They can be college or university graduates, and young employees within the first years of their careers. The research is interested in young workforce because the working Millennials with developed careers or more working experience have already been a topic for many investigations. Since it is impossible to include every member of Millennial generation of the defined age into a research, it will use the method of stratified sampling. It is a kind of random sampling which selects the research participants from certain sub-groups. In case of Millennials research, the two groups are graduate students and already working individuals. The research will apply disproportionate stratified random sampling since the number of participants from each group is not essential for the final goal of the research. The investigation focuses on the answers of the respondents that will be developed into strategies of managing Millennials in the workplace. The expected sample is expected to be 50 people. When it comes to an interview method, a decisive factor for research data is not the number of respondent but their contribution to the disclosure of the problem (Meriam et al. 2016).
Data Collection
The process of data collection is an essential part of the investigation. The results of the research, its reliability and validity depend on the way the data are gathered. The research of Millennials in the workplace presupposes contacting participants all over the country. It is impossible for a researcher to gather the sample individually. The institutions and organizations where young Millennials study or work can be helpful in organizing the research. The researcher will contact college and university administrations to find volunteers for the research. Moreover, employment centres and companies employing graduates will be involved to attract working volunteers. The respondents will be invited for the interview in a comfortable location. Those respondents who cannot be interviewed face-to-face will be contacted through skype. A spare variant of interview conduction is by phone although it is not a major method of data collection. In an interview a face-to-face contact is important particularly in the case the questions need to be changed. An interview will begin with an introduction explaining the peculiarities of the research. The respondents will also receive an informed consent form to read and sign.
Ethical Considerations
Like any investigation involving gathering personal information, this research should pay attention to some ethical considerations. First of all, the participation in the research is voluntary. Any volunteer can stop participation any moment in case he or she does not want to cooperate on any reason. Secondly, the participation is anonymous. No names or other personal details of interviewees as well as the information on their institutions will not be used in the presentation of the results’ analysis. Every participant will receive an informed consent where the details of interview that will be used in the research will be mentioned. The interviews will be anonymous and audio recordings will not be used anywhere apart from the research.
Data Analysis
The recordings of the interviews will be collected and transcribed. The participants will be divided into two groups: those from college and university graduates and from young employees. The calculations will be provided to estimate the average age of participants and the gender correlation. Next step is to work out the codes that will help to interpret the obtained data. The codes will correspond the interview questions and help to assess the answers of the participants. They will cover the issues of ambitions, job expectations, the preference of tasks and form of work, picture of a manager, wishes of job conditions, the major values associated with job, and finally the career perspectives.
The second step of data analysis includes the description of themes and relations of various concepts. Since it is a qualitative research, there are no universal methods of interpreting the findings. Consequently, the analysis of data will be provided according to a scheme developed by a researcher considering the peculiarities of the investigation. One of the methods that can be applied for data analysis in this study is the research of repetitive phrases and words in the answers of respondents. This method will allow to identify the similar answers to the questions as well as unique responds.
The third step presupposes summarizing the obtained information. It is the last stage of data analysis. It is the time to compare the obtained results with the previously set aims and objectives. This part of data analysis underlines the main results. Since it is a qualitative research, the data analysis will use a narrative description to present the results.
Research Reliability and Validity
It is difficult to assess the reliability of a qualitative research with the method of stratified sampling. Even with use of the same interview questions the respondents are not likely to give the same answers. However, in case the same population group, i.e. Millennial graduates and young employees, are the participants, the obtained results can be approximately the same. It is possible due to the fact that similar qualities are characteristic of the whole generation of workers. Nevertheless, the results will not be the same within another age group or workers with more experience.
Interview is a challenging research instrument (Leavy 2014). Since some of the interview questions for this research deal with past experiences, the research validity depends on the memory of respondents. However, in respect of job-related questions the answers are likely to be relevant and true. The respondents did not observe any pressure. The interview was anonymous, hence the answers are expected to be true and honest. A sample of 50 participants can be considered representative regarding the selected research method.
Research Limitations
Despite the relative reliability and validity of the obtained results, the research has some limitations. The first one is connected with the possible subjectivity of obtained data. Although the respondents are expected to give honest answers due to the provided data security, their answers may not be true because of their personal perceptions. Besides, since the participation in a survey is based on volunteers, it is difficult to provide the equal representation of male and female participants or guarantee the correlation of graduates and already working Millennials. One more limitation is that the research method cannot be applied on another age group or generation with the same results. Finally, the research included participants with college or university education. Thus, the results will not be valid for uneducated representatives of Millennial generation of the same age group.
Reference List
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