So let’s start at the beginning. Why is Generation Y a commercial issue for PR agencies and a career issue for an increasing number of the people who work for them?

What is it?
But before we do, what the hell is Generation Y? Many will recognise it at the one that came after Generation X. Yet definitions vary widely. It was first referenced in 1993 apparently, but then referred to people born after 1974. For me, that’s not Gen Y. If you were born in the mid 70s the first music you bought was probably still on vinyl, you didn’t eat anything microwaved until you went to secondary school and you remember your legs sticking to vinyl car seats on hot days.

So I’ve come up with my own definition of Gen Y, for the purpose of this blog. If you have ever made arrangements to meet someone in a pub without the benefit of either of you having a mobile phone (so once you made those arrangements, you had to stick to them because new information couldn’t exchanged while in transit) then you are NOT Gen Y. I still remember calling friends on home landline phones on a Thursday to arrange which pub to meet in on a Friday evening: time, pub, area of the pub. If you were 10 minutes late, you risked everyone having moved on. Text was a noun, not a verb. But we digress.

This marks Gen Y out as being (with a little leeway on the licensing laws) born after 1983, assuming mobile ubiquity by about 2001.

How Generation Y compares
For me, it comes down to this: from all the conversations I’ve had about this, Gen Yers have different motivations to other generations. This Guardian article from a couple of years ago is a good précis. Above all, the ability to earn more money seems to matter less: work/life balance and the ability to make personal choices matters more than the fury of building a successful career.

Without giving too much of a history lesson, let’s look a few of the generational observations I’ve been given about this:

- The generation who fought in the Second World War: valued freedom most, and money far less. Then the baby boomer children came, and the older generation frowned upon their frivolity, questioning why their generation had fought and died for freedoms that were being p*ssed up the wall at a Friday dance

- The baby boomers: new money, new freedoms, new innovations and labour-saving devices, new entertainment, new (any) drugs. You might envy this generation, but without them we wouldn’t have had the progress we’ve had since the 60s. This generation may have bought homes in the 70s and now be sitting (often) on properties that have benefited from a rocketing market. Which is all good for them, but subsequent generations have had more of a battle

- And next came Generation X. Technological progress means we started out on black and white TVs, and digital watches were awe-inspiring when launched. Our parents ‘had it easier’ than their parents. Yet Generation X also joined the workforce either during the frenzied capitalism of the 80s or (like me) in the 90s, when we progressed from a tough recession to the early days of the internet to rapid growth and the dot.com boom. And often, we didn’t have our parents to fall back on, at least not much. Career hunger, particularly in formative years, was paramount. The question was not whether you’d arrive at the office before you had to, it was whether you’d arrive before the cleaners had left. Seventy-hour weeks were normal. Everything was about fighting your way up. Getting on the property ladder. Pushing for the next promotion

- So to Generation Y. For me, there are several important factors about previous generations that have shaped this one. Property: buying even a small flat these days is incredibly difficult, and many people seem to feel it’s either beyond them or too much of a burden. Careers: you probably (assuming some higher education) came into the workplace from 2004 onwards; after an economic wobble, things were on the up, with employers fighting over you – travel for a while, get a job, change jobs, whatever. Motivation: yes you’re ambitious, but if there are lots of opportunities then you can move jobs and get ahead faster somewhere else. Parents: well they’re probably sitting on a reasonable nest egg so if things go wrong you can always go back to them

Why Generation Y is an issue
First, a bold statement: other generations might bemoan Gen Yers in the workplace, but they should first take a long hard look at themselves. Gen Xers may see themselves as being more motivated to progress their careers and get frustrated with those that don’t, but equally the world of work has changed markedly from the 80s and 90s. I wasn’t working at the time, but I suspect that the raw capitalists of the mid 1980s were sneered at by an older generation that had grown up valuing freedom and had the Three Day Week lingering in the memory.

But this does all help to illustrate why Generation Y can cause tension in PR agencies these days. People who worked at agencies in the 80s and 90s, who have worked through a couple of (albeit fairly moderate) boom and bust cycles and who remember what it was like to try for a year to get the right job generally put up with Gen Y between 2004 and 2009 – they needed the staff. And then when the credit crunch hit and cutbacks began, they wondered why Gen Y was (as they saw it) less willing to graft and fight. Today, they’re wondering why Gen Y is, given the faint whiff of optimism in the industry, starting to demand many of the sops and opportunities that were afforded to them during the boom years of the second half of the last decade.

It’s probably time for a list to help make this all a little clearer. Ten things Gen X PR people have said to me in the past 12 months about their frustrations with Gen Y:

1. They keep asking about what their career here holds for them; they should realise it’s them and the effort they’re putting in that’s the problem

2. They just don’t understand how tough it is and that they’re lucky to have a job

3. They keep talking about how they feel, but they don’t seem willing to do anything about it

4. Why don’t they have a career plan? I’ve always had a career plan

5. Why do they just seem content to work 9 to 5.30?

6. I struggle with managing a team in which some people are ambitious and the others might say they are but don’t have the work ethic

7. I spent way too much time mollycoddling people and should just tell them how it is

8. They’re always looking for the employers to do more for them yet they don’t do more for employers

9. Doesn’t he own a f&cking tie?

10. Why won’t people simply do what they’re told?

Some bitterness then, some frustration, and a lot of lack of understanding. But if you had gone through such tumultuous economic change, felt the property ladder was greased against you and felt that no amount of effort you made might make a difference, perhaps you’d be more sympathetic.

Or perhaps not.

This is the first of a five-part series, so is not the full picture. Not by any means. So you may have issues with the scene that’s been set above. Which is good: send me feedback please, ideally with a comment below. I have probably missed things, so fill in the gaps.

I should declare my own circumstances here: I am 36, started my career in 1992 (after several years of toiling in supermarkets and on paper rounds), bought my first property in 1997 and have divorced parents still paying off their mortgages.

Tune in for more tomorrow.