Millennial Moms at Work

Most Baby Boomer employers have already learned that their Millennial workers possess a unique set of expectations regarding work. Boomers entered the workforce expecting to invest long hours climbing corporate ladders. Millennials enter the workforce expecting to engage in an on-going game of chutes and ladders. They’re not opposed to putting in long hours on a project, but they intend to constantly dial-up then dial-down the number of hours they work.

A study recently released by the Washington D.C.-based Business and Professional Women’s Foundation, “Gen Y Women in the Workplace” highlights the expectations of today’s younger employees. Millennial women reported they want to genuinely enjoy their work, not just survive on a day-to-day basis. They also indicated they want to contribute to objectives larger than a corporation’s bottom line. Millennial women expressed opposition to corporate work-life balance programs that focus only on family needs, saying such programs fail to recognize other reasons for work-life balance.

I’ve told loads of Boomer bosses, “You must understand, your Millennial employees don’t want to be you.” This seems to be particularly true in the case of Millennial women as they become mothers. Economist Sylvia Ann Hewlitt reports than 62% of Gen Y women workers don’t want to emulate their mothers’ “extreme” careers that have generally involved long hours at work.  As they become mothers, Millennial women also don’t believe they need to choose between opting in (going full throttle at work) or opting out (becoming a stay-at-home Mom). It seems they want it all.

Which might be one of the characteristics that the generations share. It wasn’t all that long ago that my peers and I, Baby Boomers all, discussed the challenges of balancing family life and career. I remember one woman after another concluding, “You can’t have it all.”

Over the next several years we’ll see whether Millennial women, today's interns, summer associates and new hires, will change their attitudes or whether the workplace will adjust to accommodate them.

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