A recent Gallup poll indicates a majority of millennials have joined 'the working dead'...not engaged at work, but just going through the motions.
UNO professor of business and finance, Mark Rosa, says it's not that millennials don't want to be involved. It's just that they're too anxious.
The poll shows only 30 percent of millennials are engaged at work -- the other 70 percent are not engaged -- or have totally checked out. More than 60 percent of them are looking for new jobs.
UNO professor of business and finance, Mark Rosa, says it's not that millennials don't want to be involved. It's just that they're too anxious.
"They're looking to be engaged. And, I think they have a notion, very idealistically, about what work needs to be, or they want to make a difference and they want to contribute."
He says millennials want to feel like more than just a cog in the wheel.
"But, as you're a beginning employee, or younger in your career, your work might not be the most challenging. You might be doing things to help out someone obviously more senior in experience than you."
"I think that's where somebody would say, 'Well, gee, I went to school. I was all motivated. And,what I'm doing now has me less motivated'.", says Rosa. "It's like, 'Gee, I don't feel like I'm a big boy or big girl. I feel like I'm doing support work."
"And that's where some of those comments come. It's like 'Well, maybe I need to go some place else'. They don't give it enough time. Not in the first six months are you going to be the manager of a department or the head of a portfolio or doing something that really needs more experience."
But, Rosa says, the millennials tend to feel under-challenged and are over-anxious for advancement. The Gallup poll found more than 60 percent of currently employed millennials are looking for new jobs.
According to Gallup, not only are 60 percent of millennials open to another job opportunity, a majority of them are ready and willing to up and leave their current employer if another opportunity comes along.
Rosa says it's a rather uncomfortable thought that more than half of millennials don't see a solid future with their current companies.
