Generation why: They promise to be the biggest influence since the baby boomers - TREND/Bring on da boom
Author: Training & Development

Into the American workplace, hot upon the heels of Generation X, comes the Millennial Generation, Echo Boomers, a.k.a. Generation Y, born in a period pinpointed by demographers as 1979 to 1994. What's different about them from previous generations? What's similar? What do they bring to the future of work, and how will they help shape it?

Conventional theory is that every fourth generation repeats itself, so Gen Y may most resemble what some people refer to as the GI Generation (1901-1924): active voters who make a great leap in education and consider themselves to be in the happiest age bracket. At least, that was until September 11, 2001, just a week ago at this writing. Now, subsequent events will no doubt dramatically influence how Gen Y operates in the world and how they view work, and they may be even more like the GI Generation in that they will live in a time of war.

They have already seen schoolyard violence, the Oklahoma bombing, and a wide-scale terrorist attack in America. They've witnessed the peculiar phenomenon of reality TV. They communicate by pagers and cell phones. They say kewl instead of cool. They're into extreme sports. Companies regard them as a hot market for new products and a source of insight into emerging trends, but haven't quite figured out how to market to these sophisticated, no b.s. consumers.

They number 60 million, more than three times the population of Gen X and just short of the 70 million baby boomers. They're as young as seven and as old as 22, most of them yet to go through adolescence. One in three is not Caucasian. One in four lives in a single-parent household. Three in four have working mothers. They have been using computers since pre-kindergarten.