Senate offers course on 'working with millennials' to counter 'entitled praise-seekers' stereotype

One of Canada's oldest institutions is grappling with how best to manage some of its youngest workers — and the negative perceptions some staff members have of them.

The Senate of Canada has a training course on offer titled "Working with Millennials." It's a webinar aimed at getting older Senate employees to confront their stereotypes about this age cohort — especially the belief that, according to the wording on the Senate website, millennials are "entitled praise-seekers who are easily distracted by technology."

The one-hour course, which was offered as recently as last month, is designed to manage what the Senate calls one of the "greatest challenges" in the workplace — "negative stereotyping in multi-generational teams" — according to the description posted on the Senate's human resources portal.

The Senate doesn't offer a similar course on how to work with other generations like Generation X — the cohort generally defined as people born in the late 1960s to the early 1980s — or the baby boomers, who were born after the Second World War.

But the "Working with Millennials" course does address the perception that these older workers are "risk-averse, inflexible or lacking in enthusiasm," according to the course description.

Senate human resources pitched the course as a way for employees and managers to deal with "an evolution of work environments" as both young and old staffers return to their offices and face-to-face interactions after a period of remote work during the pandemic.

The "millennial" generation is loosely defined but it usually covers people born in the mid-1980s to the 1990s — the first generation that grew up with the internet.

It's a cohort that has been maligned by some as lazy, entitled job-hoppers who are hungry for praise.

Joel Thiessen is a professor of sociology at Ambrose University in Calgary and the co-author of "The Millennial Mosaic."

Thiessen told CBC News the Senate course perpetuates the "ageist" myth that millennials are uniquely difficult to work with compared to earlier generations.

He said it sends the wrong message to young staff, who are already confronting barriers in the workplace — especially in the federal public service, where workers tend to be older.

"There's a perception out there that millennials are lazy or entitled or don't want to work hard. That's not accurate at all. In fact, in the research for our book, we found that working hard is more valued by millennials than their parents' or grandparents' generation," Thiessen said.

"They're more likely to work harder than previous generations. And that's not a surprise — think about all the obstacles they're up against these days," he added, citing sky-high housing prices, inflation and a wobbly economy.

There are some workplace differences between millennials and older cohorts, Thiessen said.