Asia Pacific Business Review

ISSN: 1360-2381 (Print) 1743-792X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fapb20

What millennials want from work: how to

maximize engagement in today’s workforce

Matthias Hennings

To cite this article: Matthias Hennings (2018): What millennials want from work: how
to maximize engagement in today’s workforce, Asia Pacific Business Review, DOI:
10.1080/13602381.2018.1494781

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13602381.2018.1494781

Published online: 10 Jul 2018.

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ASIA PACIFIC BUSINESS REVIEW

BOOK REVIEW

What millennials want from work: how to maximize engagement in today’s

workforce, by Jennifer J. Deal, Alec Levenson Publisher: New York, McGraw Hill,
2016, x+252 pp., RRP: £19.99 (hbk), ISBN: 9780071842679

With the advancement of rapidly aging societies and a shrinking workforce in societies such
as Japan currently, the future business performance of organizations will depend on how
they deal with Millennials: i.e. those people born between 1980 and 2000. Against this
background of demographic shift, a growing number of studies are observing and analysing
the preferred work habits and attitudes of the Millennials generation: however, to date much
of this research has drawn data from relatively small sample populations. By using fieldwork
and survey data from more than 25,000 Millennials, Jennifer J. Deal, Senior Research Scientist
at the Center for Creative Leadership in San Diego, and Alec Levenson, Senior Research
Scientist at the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California,
provide one of the most comprehensive surveys of what Millennials appear to want, think
and do across a range of comparable societies and economies. On this basis alone, this book
promises to be a powerful resource for business practitioners and researchers across the Asia-
Pacific region.
Specifically, Deal and Levenson draw their evidence about Millennials’ attitudes from a
series of research projects conducted between 2008 and 2015. These included direct surveys
with global organizations, data from the World Leadership Survey, and interviews and focus
group meetings with respondents from over 300 organizations and which, together, repre-
sent a variety of business sectors. Accepting the research methodology as sound – of which
more later – the sample data and their analysis appear credible and up-to-date and thus can
be considered being representative of Millennial attitudes across the countries selected by
the researchers for their large-scale survey.
Responses were collected in 22 different countries, including China, Japan, South Korea
and Taiwan. Correspondingly, this book can support comparative research on Millennials
across the Asia-Pacific and beyond. To illustrate, on page 21 the authors compare the
percentage of Millennials who will discuss and perhaps challenge their performance appraisal
result with their supervisors if it does not meet their social ambitions and career expecta-
tions. Specifically, Deal and Levenson find that Millennials in East Asia are less likely to
challenge appraisals of performance than their peers in Europe and the United States,
presumably reflecting the nature of avoiding conflicts in more collectivistic Asian societies.
In terms of structure, the book is divided into seven chapters with the first five chapters
presenting the core of the survey results, Chapter 6 giving recommendations on workplace
management, and Chapter 7 highlighting research and management implications for the
future. Each of the core chapters opens by presenting stereotypes about Millennials followed
by an analysis and explanation how Millennials really think and feel. Chapter 1, for example,
addresses the stereotypical view that Millennials are not hardworking and tend to act in an
entitled manner. Chapter 2 takes a similar approach by highlighting the common prejudice
that Millennials are demanding, while Chapter 3 surmises from the survey data that
Millennials generally want to do well. In short, the authors balance stereotypical views with
evidence from their surveys, thereby exposing a number of interesting contradictions.
Correspondingly, Chapters 4 and 5 talk about the Millennials’ affinity to high technology
2 BOOK REVIEW

and commitment to work. Findings are presented in charts separating data according to
country and all main findings are summarized at the end of each chapter. This makes
working through the book smooth and helps readers who are browsing to find information
quickly.
One outstanding feature of this book in comparison to other books on this topic is not
only the impressive size of sample population used to source data about Millennials. It is also
the balancing comparison made by the authors to an analysis of survey data from 29,000
older workers who come from the same organizations and industries as the Millennials
surveyed. Through this approach, Deal and Levenson discover interesting characteristics
that make Millennials stand out from their older co-workers. These include a desire to
contribute to the community, more expressed need for feedback or communication through
social media. The authors also find that in many ways this Millennial generation is remarkably
similar to former generations in that they also expect interesting work that pays well, having
colleagues they like and trust, receiving chances for career development and a secure job.
These evidence-based insights do not mean necessarily that companies, universities and
researchers have no need to pay particular attention to the expectations of Millennials. On
the contrary, the socio-economic situation in which Millennials have grown up distinguishes
them from older generations. Raised in a technologically enhanced world, they are the first
globally connected generation that appear to share similar attitudes, interests and problems
across national and regional borders. Witnessing the Asian financial crisis in the mid-1990s
and the world financial crisis 10 years later – a period when many Millennials were entering
the workforce – Millennials around the world appear to feel more anxious about their future
than former generations. The authors touch upon this topic briefly in Chapter 2 when they
present a comparison of scores between the Millennial generation and the Gen-X and Baby
Boomer generations before them: i.e. those people born between 1965 and 1980 and 1946–
1964, respectively. The scores are analysed and presented on a positive and negative effect
scale. While older generations reported to be more enthusiastic, active and excited, less than
a third of Millennials said that they look forward to each new day at work; they also scored
higher on a variety of negative measures such as feeling upset, afraid and generally more
anxious than the generations before them.
The authors find it unexpected that people in their twenties and early thirties appear to
be less content than their colleagues in their forties, fifties and sixties: they describe this
phenomenon using reference to research conceptualizations of a so-called ‘U-bend of life’.
This reference suggests that people in their twenties and early thirties typically would be
happier than their older colleagues; however, the authors do not provide any clear explana-
tion for such findings. While a detailed analysis of the reasons for the higher levels of anxiety
among the younger generation would be beyond the scope of this research, the book is
weak at this point because it is limited to an explanation of the empirical survey results
without providing underpinning theories on the findings or an explanation of the socio-
economic situation that shaped the way Millennials think and feel.
Another relative weakness of the book is the absence of a detailed sample description:
this leaves the reader uninformed about the number of respondents in each country and the
areas where those responses were collected. Clearly, this methodological detail is important
when attempting to generalize from data gathered across regions of China, for example,
where there remain sharp variables between local levels of social and economic develop-
ment, and between urban and rural areas. Nevertheless, the book provides one of the most
comprehensive data sets on Millennials worldwide, explains in a clear and structured way
what this generation appears to want from work, and gives recommendations to employers
how to generally engage with them. As such, this book is useful reading for HR professionals,
 ASIA PACIFIC BUSINESS REVIEW 3

business leaders and researchers whose focus of interest is on how Millennials ‘work’. With
the next generation of employees born after 2000 starting to enter universities and soon the
labour market, the question arises about how similar or different this new generation might
be in terms of attitudes to and expectations of work.
With this book, Deal and Levenson wisely do not attempt to predict answers to such open
questions. Nonetheless, their closing chapter provides an interesting look to the future. With
increasing life expectancy, less socio-economic security and a societal shift towards marriage
and family as in Japan, ageing Millennials and coming generations will face many issues that
will affect their individual choices along with the options of the organizations that employ
them. Thus, future research can learn from the example proposed in this book to begin
surveying now and on a large scale the thinking and emotions of emerging generations of
employees.

Matthias Hennings
Center for International Education and Cooperation, Kwansei Gakuin University
matthias.hennings@kwansei.ac.jp
© 2018 Matthias Hennings
https://doi.org/10.1080/13602381.2018.1494781