This post is part of my series about Generation Y around the world. You can read my previous posts here and here.
Generation C: What the “C” stands for (Creators? Communication? Content?) depends on who you ask, but the term coined in the mid-2000s puts a positive spin on New Zealand’s Generation Y demographic. The country’s youth could use a little positivity, especially in light of the alarming statistics about the state of young Kiwis’ mental and physical health.
Individuals aged 12-24 (who make up 20% of New Zealand’s population) have the highest rates of mental illness, suicide, teen pregnancy, and have suffered more injuries than youth in other OECD nations. The country’s suicide rate is among the highest in the world – with 19.7 deaths per 100,000 among 15-24 year olds, and 18.6 per 100,000 among 25-34 year olds. While still troubling, these numbers follow a downward trend in suicide rates since they peaked in the late 1980s.
In the not-so-distant past, young Kiwis were viewed as entitled and out of touch with reality. Their countless questioning (earning them the nickname Generation Why?) irritated employers, and, as we’ve seen here in the U.S., sparked a barrage of articles and research about how to manage such an unruly group.
In her November 2009 article in the New Zealand Listener, Ruth Laugesen reports that many of the country’s conceptions about Generation C are incorrect; in fact, research indicates that Generation X had the roughest time transitioning from adolescence to adulthood.
“On a whole range of measures, they [Generation X] entered adulthood brooding and fed up. They had the lowest rates of employment, the highest rates of unemployment and benefit receipt, and the highest rates of youth suicide, and left New Zealand in the largest numbers,” writes Laugesen.
Business leaders in New Zealand seem to slowly be recognizing the value of the demographic of employees they once so casually wrote off as being “impatient, demanding, and adamant that they will change the world.“ At a round table summit held in November of 2009, participating CFOs described 20-something employees as being “creative agents of change.”
Paul Chambers, CFO of Meridian Energy, says “I see these people have converted from a drain into a resource…they pick up enough of the business to work more effectively.”
What Gen C been doing all along is now seen as something valuable, as it becomes more and more obvious that maintaining the status quo will do little to help the global economy recover. “They ask questions about why – why do we do it this way?” noted one CFO. Amazingly, when the questions of young employees are actually taken into consideration, they often “lead to different and more efficient ways of doing things.”
The organizations pointed out that as worst of the recession moves behind us and hiring picks up, young workers are likely to lose their sense of loyalty, and become job-jumpers again (their previous tendency to switch positions often was one of executives’ primary complaints about Generation C). Perhaps this could be avoided if upper management continued to heed the suggestions of the youngest members of the work force – valuing their contributions and encouraging them to question and offer innovative ideas – even when external factors do not require it.
One thing I find to be interesting about the choice of words describing New Zealand’s Generation “C” is that they’re not age-specific. Anyone, at any time, can decide to become a creator, a communicator, or to contribute content instead of merely consuming it. Furthermore, the attributes that Generation C longs for in an employer (e.g., feedback, mentorship, advancement opportunities) are hardly limited to benefiting only their age cohort if applied to the entire workplace.
While not all that fundamentally different from “Gen Y” in the United States, Generation C has essentially rebranded as a “group of communicators and creators” – a move that could go a long way in correcting the negative stereotypes that continue to plague our generation. Perhaps “Generation C” could come to be the global term to describe the group of tech-savvy, ambitious and highly-connected individuals whose flexibility and openness to change will usher in a new era of growth.
