What Gen Y Should Have Before Entering the Professional World

For people of Generation Y, who were born during the 1980s and early 2000s, many of you have started to work. The Gen Y starts to become the largest portion of the workforce. For companies, the emergence of Gen Y can lead into better industrialization and economics. Despite this fact, the domination of Gen Y also brings new “issues” to professional world, especially because of character differences with their predecessor in the middle-high management positions who are predominantly from Generation X. These issues are caused by the culture gap between these two generations.

Gen Y was born during the technological shift from analogue into digital – and they were raised by parents who lacked understanding of technological advancements. Gen Y only started to know gadgets when they were in elementary or during adolescence. Generation Y is often considered as smart, active and aggressive generation who looks forward for changes and raised during the evolvement of wireless technology. However, there is also a common assumption that Gen Y possesses several negatives characters that can hinder company progress, especially in an established company. Several examples of these negative characters are ungracious, egocentrism, high individualism, easily bored, and disloyal.

These characters can potentially cause miscommunication between Gen Y and their superior from Gen X. For example, this situation can occur when making weekly or monthly report. Gen Y workers think that it would be enough to file a report in softcopy or just send it via email. Meanwhile, their Gen X superior would expect to receive printed and verbal report. In many cases, problem arises because the superior think that they haven’t received the report from their Gen Y subordinate, while the staff feels he has filed the report long before the deadline. Due to this reason, Gen Y feels that it would be better for them to establish a startup rather than being an employee in well-known companies.

The CEO of John Robert Powers Indonesia, Andrew Andrianto, said that Gen Y is the most “critical” generation because they were born in a transitional era. “Therefore, Gen Y has several issues to deal with, such as culture gap that can confuse them. They actually have several work-life choices, but on the other side they are hesitant and afraid to make progress or even make knee-jerk decisions,” Andrew said during the event of Career Seminar with John Robert Powers Indonesia at JWC Campus on Wednesday (30/3).

He continued by suggesting that Gen Y should have two factors before entering professional and entrepreneur world. The first factor is consistency. “They (Gen Y) can’t just jump ship from one company to another, especially in a short term. They should stay in one company for at least two or three years,” Andrew adds. To become consistent, Andrew advices Gen Y to love whatever they do. “You must first love what you do, and then you will be able to do what you love. The important thing is, we have to love what we do and build our interest towards our work. It’s like falling in love with your workplace,” Andrew said.

The second factor is resilient. As an inexperienced junior, Andrew reveals that Gen Y often got rejected when proposing an idea or plan. The refusal from other employees makes the situation even worse. Therefore, Gen Y should equip themselves with a resilient mind. He suggests that Gen Y should leave a legacy within their workplace before they move on as it will add positive values to their resumes.