Why Millennials Are Often Far From ‘Lazy’

by Liz Seyi Digital marketing manager

Why Millennials Are Often Far From ‘Lazy’

It’s a terrible thing when you have your eye on a potentially great talent for your company, only to suddenly start feeling doubt due to certain unfortunate stereotypes. Oh, they’re young and trendy, and they were tapping away at their smartphone while in the waiting room for their job interview – will they be lazy, feckless and constantly on Facebook while in the office?

A lot of us have probably got certain ugly preconceptions about Millennials in our heads when we come to hire. Millennials themselves, though, know better.

Here are just some of the reasons why your next Millennial recruit may actually be one of the most productive people in your company.

They Are Incredibly Proficient With Technology

Let’s look back to that ‘smartphone-tapping’ 20-something or 30-something we mentioned above. Fair enough, so they might spend what seems – to you, anyway – an unhealthy amount of time on Twitter when they’re out of the office.

But when they’re in the office... well, they’re very likely to be putting that legendary Millennial tech-proficiency to good use.

If a Millennial isn’t sure how to complete a task, for example, they’ll typically look up a YouTube tutorial or other online resource via Google, rather than struggling along through trial and error, as some Baby Boomer employees may instinctively do.

They also tend to know all about the productivity apps that are available on their handsets and tablets. They grew up with technology, and today, the workplace is more tech-oriented than ever.

They Are Often Accustomed To Juggling Multiple Jobs

With Millennials having been born roughly between the early 1980s and the early 2000s, many of them entered the workplace for the first time during the late 2000s recession, a period also characterised by ever-heightening university tuition fees.

As a result, many Millennials are more than used to studying on a course at the same time as working in a bar part-time, or even taking on such a ‘side gig’ alongside poorly-paid full-time work in a completely different field.

Millennials like this are often far from lazy, not least as they know full well that they might not be able to afford to stay in university if they turn up late to their restaurant job one day and get sacked.

They Blur The Boundaries Between Work And Play

While Baby Boomers grew up in a world in which it was much more customary to have sharp divides between their work and home lives, the situation can be rather different for the average Millennial.

Millennials often like to have fun at work – whether that means exchanging plenty of banter with their colleagues in the office or discussing client projects with those co-workers while in the pub on their lunch break – but also frequently enjoy mixing in some work with their home life.

Many a Millennial, for example, is sat at their laptop at home on a Tuesday night, hammering away to get the assignment done that they may have run out of time to complete during the day. They tend to be quite happy to put in the extra hours, provided that they can do so flexibly.

As Millennials account for an ever-larger proportion of the workforce and gradually move into upper management roles, it becomes more and more important to understand them beyond the stereotypes which, let’s face it, can be pretty lazy themselves.

Would you like to maximise your chances of landing that dream Millennial employee who delivers brilliant productivity for your company? If so, partner with one of the UK’s leading Recruitment Firms – Webrecruit – to quickly start taking advantage of our rich technology and resources.