Millennials in the workplace: how it affects the accounting system

The millennials are those born between 1981 to 1997 and are considered the largest generation in the United States workforce today. They create a huge impact on how business and workplaces are managed today. Since they reach millions, the millennials in the workplace are subjects of study to fully understand their common traits, characteristics, behaviors, and attitudes toward work. How they are managed matters a lot in today’s workplaces.

Traits of millennials

Special

They have always been treated as special and important. When they achieve something, they want to be praised and be given positive feedback.

Sheltered

They grew conscious about safety measures.

Confident

They are motivated, goal-oriented, and confident in themselves and the future. They see themselves to be great and they brag about their generation’s power and potential. They are also considered the “sunshine generation.”

Team-oriented

They are group-oriented rather than individualists since they prefer egalitarian leadership and not hierarchies.

Achieving

They focus on getting grades through hard work; they are involved in worthy activities that allow them to reach higher levels of achievements.

Pressured

They may struggle with handling free time and managing time as they are pressured to succeed; they do multitasking to save time and allow them to do things smartly.

Millennials in the Philippines

Francis Kong, a well-respected inspirational and business speaker, was invited as a speaker in Malacanang on February 2, 2017. He spoke before the Malacanang Press Corps about the millennials in the workplace. He has seen how they impact today’s workplace and even dominated the market. In fact, he said that millennials comprise approximately 50% of the country’s workforce.

How Francis Kong described millennials

• When given their smartphones and laptops can be the journalists, reporters, fashion stylists, photographers, critiques, technology savvies, and so forth;
• They want to gain more experiences rather than just ‘stuff’; they are generally restless and impatient;
• They are extremely sensitive; they can quit their jobs anytime; they expect their bosses to be trustworthy; they are brilliant but they get easily bored;
• They can turn out to be the best entrepreneurs in the country;
• They need to develop them with skills based on emerging skills as companies have to retool, retrain and reconfigure them.

Needs of millennials in the workplace

• Equip them with emerging skills by addressing leadership gap where tenured managers using old ways drive talented people away;
• To address values gap, millennials appreciate authenticity, integrity; they appreciate those videos that show blemishes and genuine mistakes. Relating to accounting, authenticity, and integrity of their work are important; they follow their boss who possesses the same values; they must “walk the talk”;
• While they are impatient, they also need immediate results; they are not treated as consumers but as creators of new things.

Millennials are faced with challenges as they lack LQ or the likeability quotient; they are easily angry and can freely express their emotions.

How can managers deal with millennials well

• To entrust ourselves with the burden to improve communication skills;
• To manage moods and emotions very carefully, to practice rational thinking rather than deciding based on feelings and emotions;
• To understand long-term success from short-time pleasures;
• To realize that not all things can be taken casually, casualness in all things will lead to casualty

Millennials and accounting

In the accounting profession, the millennials are studied well to tap their fullest potentials as accounting professionals. Considering their attitudes and behavior towards work, the millennials prefer flexibility into any department policies hence the management has to be flexible to accommodate or meet this need.To foster work-life balance, the millennials in the workplace are particular about defining their personal time and work time, and yet they are competitive by being the best talent that the business could attain. They are good at using technology and using technology makes things easier and manageable for them and for their own advantage.

Conclusion

The millennials in the accounting workplace see accounting no longer as confined to the work in the office and spending long hours doing computations and working on financial reports.For them, the accounting profession offers a wide range of opportunities that it is all up to them to make the most of their time, knowledge, talent and skills in using them for their career advancement and for helping others.They do not stop searching for challenges; they are willing to explore their knowledge and skills and upgrade them whenever necessary.The need to maintain a work-life balance is important because, for them, they are more productive if they are happy with what they are doing and when they find fulfillment in all the things that they do.