Study: Millenials Not Engaged

Human Resources consultant BlessingWhite recently published the results of an engagement pulse check across three generations around the world—baby boomers, Generation X and Millennials (also known as Gen Y). This was determined through a survey conducted between December 2007 and February 2008 and the results were sobering. Here are the top-line results:

Disengaged Employees Levels by Generation and Region

	Baby boomers (born 1946-1964)	Generation X (1965-1977)	Generation Y (1978-1990)
Australia & New Zealand	13%	24%	25%
China*	–	34	33
Continental Europe	18	20	28
India	16	12	14
North America	17	20	25
Southeast Asia	16	20	35
U.K. & Ireland	18	22	30

* There were too few survey responses for baby boomers in China to include.

"The research suggests that the more senior the employees, the more engaged they are," BlessingWhite CEO Christopher Rice said in a press release on the results. “Around the globe, senior executives are generally more engaged than frontline managers or individual contributors. Gen Y [Millennial] disengagement levels may reflect, to some extent, their low seniority since more baby boomers would predictably hold leadership roles. Increased engagement is an expected outcome from power and position.”

Disengaged workers can only become a larger and larger handicap for companies. India may have the answer for us. That’s because the exception to a general picture of disengagement among Millenials can be seen in India, where younger employees have higher levels of engagement compared with other regions.

Rice explained in the BlessingWhite press release. “This probably reflects the expanded opportunities as well as its young, fast-paced, knowledge-based economy. In fact, all generations in India are happier than employees in other regions.”

Millenials are our future. Often they bring a much healthier approach to work and the workplace than many older workers do. They are the first generation in history that will teach the generations before it how to make use of the next generation of technology, Web 2.0 and 3.0 tools.

We should see this global engagement survey as another wake-up call that the Knowledge Economy has arrived. Knowledge worker productivity is driven by personal engagement and commitment. Increasingly in the future, this will be the main responsibility of management. Motivation of knowledge workers requires that managers reframe their paradigms from command and control to servant leadership. Why?

Knowledge work is driven by intrinsic motivation. It is chosen.