Millennials In The Workplace: A Study On Generational Differences And Organizational Culture

Advantages and disadvantages of stratified random sampling

Baby boomers and Gen X are the largest generations that have been working in the workplace. Gen X can identify the organisational memory and strengths, they love to work on long hours and believe in optimism (Chou, 2012). As found out in his article by Chou (2012), leader-member relationship, organizations and managers lead to improvement of leadership effectiveness by matching right leadership style to Millennials’ followership style. In the workplace, Millennials are dependent the internet and their communication channels are based on it. In performance wise, Millennials do not believe in performance appraisal, however, they like to get recognition. Pinzaru (2016), supported this by giving the statistical figure of workforce on 2014 when 34% was millennials and 66% was older generation and this figure may touch 47% would be millennials and 53% would be older generation. Millennials believe in regular and effective communication and they want quality and frequent feedback with rating from the management. On the contrary, Stewart et al., (2017), pointed out that millennials have an egocentric conflict with the older generations as they think older generations do not want to assimilate with them. By doing the interviews of millennials, Dimitriou & Blum (2015), stated that in the workplace, millennials are socially minded and they are creative. Their performance depends on team-oriented culture, mentoring and create a collegial environment. Chou (2012), opined that older generations believe in office working and they are not family-centric. The authors also argued that millennials love to work in a flexible schedule and this cannot be seen as a narcissistic point of view. It could be stated that this is a gap in literature that gives room for further research as millennials do not want to work in an organisation for a long time as they like to hop different jobs after a certain period of time. Employers in this respect can link a between friendly approach and supervisor role to motivate Millennials.

Generation theory describes that the era in which an individual was born affects how they see the world. Generations in the developed countries’ workplace can divided into four categories. The Millennials are the group of population in the current society who were young adults or at an comprehendible age at the turn of 21^st century. Felix (2013), defined the millennials as millennials are the persons who were born after the 1980s and they are also called Gen Y. This generation is marked by the increasing use of media, communication and digital technologies. Gen Y has a liberal approach and they try to make a connection to other generations as well. A large organisation can have different minded workers who belong from different generations. On the other side, as stated by (Stewart et al., 2017), older generations want to have instructions for the works, whereas, millennials want to have a guide for their work. Tension is resulted from generational differences that exist because of contrasting values (Kowske, Rasch & Wiley, 2010).

Generational differences in the workplace

Organisations cannot adopt a culture in a single day. However, it needs to form with the course of time as the employee continues to work and gradually acculture themselves with the organizational changes. The organisation needs to adapt to the external environment in order to solve the organizational problems (Kultalahti & Liisa Viitala, 2014). Edgar Schein conceptualised a theory of organisational culture and it has three levels in a firm. The first level is about artefacts and it is the characteristics of the organisation that can be easily seen, felt and heard. This level is associated with the employees’ dress, behaviour and facilities. Values of the employees must constitute organisational culture. The values of the staffs can play an important role to form the organisational culture as the attitude of the employees has a deep impact on the culture of the organisation. Core values of Millennials are collaboration, social activism, diversity and tolerance (Paulin et al., 2014). Lastly, assumed values of the employees cannot be measured. Employees must have certain facts that stay hidden as the inner perspective of the employees under the level of organisational culture (Luthans, Luthans & Luthans, 2015).  As defined by Smith & Nichols (2015), organisational culture contributes to the psychological and social environment of the organisations that represent the collective value, principles and beliefs.

Older generations have preferences to stay in a single organisation throughout their life as they believed in job security, whereas, millennials believe in the changing of the jobs after a certain period. This change gets the fuel from the confidence level of millennials. As discussed by through surveys Pomarici & Vecchio (2014), in workplace, millennials are trying to maintain two things simultaneously, technology is influencing culture and culture is influencing the technology. Millennials expect the close relationship with the supervisors and they change the workplaces after sometimes. Millennials try to maintain a good balance in personal and professional life. On the contrary, older generations provide value for recognition of hard work and they focus more on work. Baby boomers show apprehensiveness to diversity and they tend to defend the status quo. Pomarici & Vecchio (2014), stated in this article also discussed that older generation values workplace rules, procedures and policies whereas; millennials want flexibility in working process.

As opined by Papavasileiou & Lyons (2015), Millennials look for versatility and flexibility in workplace culture. The authors examined the positive characteristics in organisations and explored the importance of job for millennials. Work-life-balance is one of the most important changes in the workplace and Gen Y loves to work from home instead of coming home. Gig economy is the new concept for the millennials. Millennials crave for recognition in the workplace as 85% of the millennials in the USA want recognition for their good works (Pwc.com, 2018). Millennials bring the social networking, Smartphone culture in the workplace. It could be stated that this is a gap in literature that gives room for further research as millennials want career growth if they want to be in the workplace and they want salary boost as well (Winter & Jackson, 2016). Most importantly, older generations tend to work in long working hours, millennials know how to make a balance between personal and professional life whereas older generations value money with lucrative retirement plan.

Organizational culture and its impact on millennials and older generations

Millennials want stability in life in the earlier period; employers have to pay less as millennials are cost effective. Millennials are genuine in their work and they want to be efficient in their style of working. In the article, as stated by Thompson & Gregory (2012), millennials face an issue when they have to use the mind numbing software within the organisation and they face an issue when someone incapable within the organisation manages them. On the other side, the authors also mentioned that older generations sometimes get apprehensive to the diversity and they tend to defend the status quo. Unlike the millennials, older generations believe in continual professional development in productivity and career development. Winter & Jackson (2016) stated that millennials are new generation and they can think out of the box as they are creative. As an individual, millennial is super educated as they spend significant time to study. On the other side, as discussed in the article by Watts et al., (2016), handling Millennials can be a challenge for the employers as they leave the organisation after sometimes as they always strive to have a career opportunity. Smith & Nichols (2015), supported the authors by saying that millennials are ego-centric sometimes as they cannot make a solid bond with the baby boomers and Gen X. It can be stated that this is a gap in literature that gives room for further research within the organisation, it can have theoretical knowledge as well practical knowledge of studying. When working within a team, millennials can collaborate well and they are tenacious. These people are optimistic and they can work with technologies.

Research philosophy

Research philosophy is a concept about the way in which data is collected, used and analysed. Research philosophy can be differentiated into three different types, positivism, realism and interpretivism (Taylor, Bogdan & DeVault, 2015).

In this research project, Positivism Philosophy will be selected. As stated by Mackey & Gass (2015), positivism assumes that reality is external and knowledge is based on observation. Positivism philosophy deals with the factual knowledge and data collection process is facilitated towards research questions on millennials and organisational culture. Positivism philosophy also helps to collect the data through scientific way and it depends on the quantifiable operation.

Research approach

  The research approach is the process of data is collected and analysed. There are mainly two types of research approach, deductive approach and inductive approach.  

Research philosophy, approach, and design

The researcher will use deductive research approach in this research project. Deductive approach is helpful in tasting the theories and generating the hypothesis (Lewis, 2015). There are large numbers of literature are already presented on Millennials in the workplace; deductive approach helps to observe and confirm or reject these. The deductive approach starts with theory and the researcher leads to the findings and observation.  

Research design

The research design is the process of data collection plan and it helps to collect the data in a systematic way. There are mainly three types of research design, exploratory, explanatory and descriptive.

The researcher will take descriptive research design method. Descriptive research design will help the researcher to depict the participants of the research in an accurate way. The researcher will collect the data in an observational way to view and record the participants’ opinion.

The research method will be quantitative research where the data will be collected from primary data sources. Primary data are raw data that are collected from first-hand sources. In addition, the researcher will conduct a survey in order to collect the data. The researcher will collect the data through survey from the employees of the selected organisation in the UK. Survey research will be more appropriate to the widespread use of a quantitative survey. Survey research is cost effective and it is flexible as one can do this through online, email and social media. The survey is easier than the interviews. The researcher will collect the e-mail ids of the participants and will ask their permission. The researcher will distribute the survey questionnaire to the participants through the e-mails and ask them to revert within 15 days. E-mail survey research will help to collect data from broader population and it will be a convenient way.

Research instrument and Data analysis

The researcher will prepare 15 close-ended questions using Google form in order to collect the data. The researcher will make 5 demographic questions of the employees and 10 subjective questions. The questions will have options and some of the questions will be on the Likert scale. The link to Google form will be sent through e-mails to the participants.  

The data will be analysed through quantitative data analysis method. Quantitative data deal with numerical data. The researcher will present the findings of the research using Excel bar graph, pie-charts and tables.

The researcher will collect the responses from UK based company. The sample population of the research project will be employees of an organisation from 5 chosen departments; (Human Resource, Finance, Marketing, IT and Operations). The sample size of the research project will be 150. The researcher will take email ids from the employees. The researcher will send the Google form questionnaire through the e-mail. The sampling frame will be Google forms and e-mails. The researcher will take help of Simple Random sampling in order to select the respondents. In simple random sampling, each member of the population has an equal chance of being selected as the subject (Edson, Henning & Sankaran, 2016). Simple random sampling will be helpful as it provides a fair way of selecting the participants from the five departments of that organisation and it provides equal opportunity to every member of being selected.

Sample population	Sample size	Sampling technique	Sampling frame
Employees of the chosen 5 departments, Human Resource, Finance, Marketing, IT and Operations	150	Simple random sampling technique	Google form and e-mail

Table 1: Sampling technique

(Source: Created by the researcher)

The research ethics address the moral principles and application. This research deals with the human participants and the researcher will take permission from the management of the organisation in order to collect the data for the survey. The researcher will follow all the ethical norms. The researcher will take voluntary participation and the researcher takes the informed consent of the participants. Consent will be maintained throughout and it means that participants can withdraw from the research at any time. It will ensure that the researcher will not harm anyone’s career as the confidentiality will be maintained. The researcher will follow Data Protection Act 1998 UK. This act ensures that personal information can be used for research purposes and the names of the respondents cannot be revealed as the researcher needs to maintain confidentially (Townend, 2017). In addition, no transaction of money will be done. The researcher will collect the data only for the research purpose. Once the research process will be done, the researcher will destroy all the data.  

The research process will be finished within 12 weeks (3 months).

Activities	Week 1	Week 3	Week 5	Week 7	Week 9	Week 11	Week 12
Selection of research topic	?
Conducting literature review		?
Selection of research design and methods			?
Collection of primary data through survey and interview				?
Data findings and analysis					?
Conclusion and recommendations						?
Final submission							?

Table 2: Gantt chart of proposed Research timeline

(Source: Created by the researcher)

Reference List

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