Last year I facilitated a training session with an organisation that was celebrating their 45th year since inception. Before developing the content for a skills training programme, trainers usually carry out a needs assessment. I kid you not, but the top gap that this group identified was the headache of dealing with the millennials in the work place.
Their issues with the millennials ranged from the blatant rebellion of the youngsters to the casual behaviour that the millennials exhibit, even in the presence of bosses. Awful!
The millennials in the team indicated that they hated paper work and the boring grind of eight to six, the lacklustre office suits and the suffocating wait for promotion. Wait for more than a decade before getting a taste of the big bucks? How is that even conceivable? The millennials asked in their survey responses.
Being a first born and the eldest of cousins in my family from both sides, I am surrounded by millennials. My sister, the family baby is a millennial. I assure you, they are made from another breed. They do not care for the social graces that we so careful uphold.
They are not only bold and shockingly so, but they question and often rebel against the norm. They know exactly what they want and they go for it. I am learning about love and respect in marriage from my sister.
While my generation was the one that experienced the girl child empowering, being told that what a man can do, a woman can do better, my baby sister’s generation are wondering why on earth they need to compete with a man in the first place and why a man is an SI unit for a girl.
“I am the best in my skin. Ew! Don’t compare me with a man. They are great in their space and I am awesome in mine. YOLO.” It is from my baby sister that I am learning about healthy self-love and a healthy marriage relationship. From her, I am learning that it does not make me a doormat if we both come home from a long day at work and I serve hubby his hot chocolate. They leave home together, kick the donkey together, go dancing together and get back home together to tend to their children.
She makes a mean tumbukiza brunch for the family on the weekends. Her hubby, her fellow millennial who calls her by her first name, the one we rarely ever use will dress his children just as she so easily will. They are not shackled down by any cultural rules, roles or expectations. Any of them can serve the other one tea, run the family account and pay for the family holiday.
The millennials, as we learnt during that training programme are free thinking. They are game changers whose lives revolve around technology. They will as easily disregard bureaucracy as they did the fax machines.
They will invent or discover lifesaving hacks if you give them a lap top and unlimited internet. Those infamous 90 days turn arounds preached by parastatals are yours for keeps. Millennials will figure out how to achieve the very same within 24 hours. Do you know what is exciting about millennials as spouses?
They are game changers in the marriage relationship. A millennial husband will unabashedly buy his wife tampons as he so easily picks the milk and baby diapers.
He will don an apron, whip out a meal from a recipe he followed on YouTube and make a show stopper presentation of an APP he has created to stop the pilferage in the company.
A millennial wife will do the very same while also giving the love and respect and expect the very same right back. Time is nigh that we took humble pie and learnt from these millennials. We need to upgrade our world views to the latest versions.
Team effort is top of mind with the millennial. There is no one calling the shots, ranting commands down the pecking chain, whether in the office or at home. Everyone is a boss in their own right, contributing to the bigger picture.
Catch up granny, because, after the millennials, we now have generation Z, our children. These are the guys you can no longer threaten with Kirimo the ogre. They will google the facts and leave you with egg on your face. Let us humble ourselves and learn from these youngsters.
