八零、九零后已经成为工作场所中最大的人口群体。但各个年龄段的经理们都难以找到和这批二三十岁的人建立联系的最佳途径。他们的打字动作大多由大拇指完成，上班时耳朵里塞着耳机，瞄着电脑上的五个浏览器窗口时还说自己可以正经地讨论工作。对于这一代人，许多领导者靠的都是固有印象（请参见前一句话），结果却发现这些印象要么不对，要么在管理中用不上。

那么，该怎么办呢？

现在对八零、九零后该使用2.0版管理方法了，它基于由多年经验和当前数据得出的更细微的差别，其中最突出的见解有三条：

不同的一代人并非不同的物种

就许多重要角度而言，八零、九零后和六零、七零后以及婴儿潮一代非常像。在IBM最近开展的调查中，只有18%的八零、九零后表示“让工作和生活达到平衡”是其两大职业目标之一，在六零、七零后和婴儿潮一代中，这个数字是22%和21%——这就和既定观念背道而驰。该调查还指出，和六零、七零后相比，八零、九零后把个人社交媒体账户用于工作的可能性较低；此外，在学习新工作技能时，八零、九零更喜欢——注意了——面对面接触的方式。

文化差异掩盖了代际差异

八零、九零后有一个众所周知的坏名声，那就是一只脚跨在门外，不断搜索可能提供更好待遇的用人单位。但这一点并非放之四海而皆准。德勤的新研究发现，在秘鲁，82%的八零、九零后预计会在五年内离职；在比利时，这个比例则为51%。另一个衡量企业认同感的指标显示，在拉丁美洲的八零、九零后中，因为和自身价值观或道德观相悖而拒绝某项工作任务的员工占比普遍较高。在哥伦比亚，这个数字是71%，在日本则只有20%。

在任何文化中，年龄和性别不同的八零、九零后都有很大差异

在这个群体中，年纪最大的生于1982年，当年的《时代周刊》年度人物是“计算机”；年纪最小的生于2000年，也就是互联网泡沫破裂之时。本特利大学的研究者指出，在八零、九零后中，年龄较大的人和女性做同一份工作的时间会长于年龄较小的人和男性。同时，就八零、九零后这一群体而言，男性想当首席执行官或公司总裁的几率（17%）高于女性（9%）。普华永道的研究发现，和八零、九零后中的男性相比，女性更有可能愿意用降薪或放弃升迁机会为代价，换取更短的工作时间。

八零、九零后管理方法1.0版有两大关键失误：它过于强调这一代和其他代人的差别，而且过于强调这些差别的相似性。对任何一代人的领导者来说，结论都是要接受一个现实，那就是八零、九零后群体的多样性和你遇到的任何群体都不相上下，而且你需要采取多种多样的激励措施，以鼓励他们贡献最佳表现。（财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

审校：詹妮

Millennials have become the largest demographic in the workplace. But managers of all ages have struggled to find the best way to connect with a wave of twenty- and thirty somethings who do most of their typing with their thumbs, work wearing earbuds, and claim they can hold meaningful conversations while monitoring five open browser windows. Many leaders have fallen back on stereotypes about the generation (see the previous sentence), only to find that they’re neither true nor useful in managing.

So now what?

It’s time for Managing Millennials 2.0, based on finer distinctions derived from years of experience and current data. Three helpful insights stand out:

Different Generations Aren’t Different Species.

On many important dimensions, millennials are remarkably like Gen Xers and baby boomers. Contrary to stereotype, in a recent IBM IBM -1.22% survey only 18% of millennials said “managing my work/life balance” is one of their top two career goals, vs. 22% of Gen Xers and 21% of baby boomers. Millennial employees are less likely than Gen Xers to use personal social media accounts for work purposes, says the same research. And millennials’ preferred method of learning new work skills is—brace yourself—face-to-face contact.

Cultural Differences Swamp Generational Ones.

By reputation, millennials are notorious for having one foot out the door, scanning other potential employers for a better offer. But that doesn’t hold true everywhere. In Peru, 82% of them expect to leave their employer in the next five years, while in Belgium only 51% do, finds new research from Deloitte. In another gauge of identification with an employer, the share of millennials who have refused a work task because it conflicts with their values or ethics is generally high in Latin America—71% in Colombia—but only 20% in Japan.

Within Any Culture, Millennials Differ Widely by Age and Gender.

The generation’s oldest members were born in 1982, when Time’s Man of the Year was “The Computer,” while the youngest were born in 2000, when the Internet boom busted. Older and female millennials expect to stay in their jobs longer than younger and male millennials do, say Bentley University researchers. Men of the generation are more likely than women (17% vs. 9%) to aspire to be a CEO or company president, says the same study. PwC research finds that women are more likely than men to say they’d take a pay cut and fewer promotions in order to work fewer hours.

Managing Millennials 1.0 goes wrong in two critical ways: overstating differences between this generation and others, and overstating similarities within it. The takeaway, for leaders of any generation: Accept the reality that millennials are as varied as any group you’ve encountered—and that you’ll need a diverse range of incentives to get them to perform at their best.