Baby, X, Y, Z, AO

What’s in a generation?

The question came to me after I read Stephanie K. Jones’ article, “What Do Millennials Want?” on page 14.

It seems, according to her story, they want “meaningful, satisfying and challenging work they will enjoy,” and they appreciate “collaborative work environments.” The article cites a survey by the Griffith Foundation that asked a random sampling of people from Generation Y — roughly defined as people who were born between 1982 and 1993 — what attributes they consider most important when considering a job.

The top three answers in order were “Competitive Salary,” “Benefits” and “Work/Life Balance.”

When I first started in the workforce — I’m Generation X, also known as the MTV generation, a generation marked by the introduction of the home computer, and the beginning of video games and cable television — if there were a poll I’ll bet the results would simply read as follows: “A job.”

And we were grateful for that.

The Millennials article states this new generation coming into the workforce en masse — there are 75 million of them — is also good at multitasking, they are comfortable with technology and most importantly, their opinion about the insurance industry has yet to be shaped.

Their successors, Generation Z, are also known for multitasking and for being comfortable with technology. I associate “Z” with the word “zombie,” a creature that has become popular again thanks to several books, a popular television show and a big budget feature film due out soon on the subject. Based on the few Gen Zers I know, I find the connection with zombies apropos.

From what I can tell by searching the Internet — and I know several Baby Boomer journalists who would scoff at such a lazy approach to researching a story — following Gen Z will be Generation Alpha, or Gen A. Although Wikipedia calls them Generation AO, for the Always-On Generation.

According to experts cited on Wikipedia, they will be “nimble, quick-acting multitaskers who count on the Internet as their external brain.” They’ll also thirst for instant gratification, look for quick fixes, have little patience and they will lack deep-thinking ability.

It’ll be interesting to see what they bring to the working world.