A few years ago, I attended a workshop where Millennial-generation expert Jason Dorsey spoke about Millennials in the workplace. Jason is considered a leader in multi-generation research with an emphasis on Millennial and Gen-Z generations. If you have never heard Jason speak, you should really get yourself invited to one his speaking engagements.

According to Jason, there are approximately 83 million Millennials in the US. They are the largest generation of employees and consumers.

I walked away from the presentation both informed and entertained. Included in my newly found knowledge included the following:

• Millennials do not consider themselves adults until they reach the age of 30.
• Millennials consider 9 months at a job long-term.
• Millennials are heavy users of tech support despite growing up with technology (they are heavy users of technology, but not necessarily technical).

Obviously, these are generalities; and of course, there are many exceptions to the above. Generalness aside, I found Jason’s expertise to be very helpful in understanding a Millennial’s perspective on the world, which is vastly different my Gen-X experience.

I have worked with several very competent and ambitious Millennials. Since attending the workshop, I deliberately changed my approach with my Millennial co-workers. I experienced improvement in my personal relationships with them – to say nothing about restoring some mental sanity. Them something happened that made me realize that may not be the best approach: one of my Millennial co-workers was asked to handle a situation with a Baby-Boomer from another organization.