Original Article on Gen Y: Gen Y (Millennials) Values and their impact on Oganizational Design - Nabil Al Kilany

Introduction

The original 2011 paper assessed the relevance of “Generation Y values” to the design and management of organisations. Since that time, organisations have been reshaped by sustained digitalisation, platform ecosystems, intensifying environmental and social expectations, and the COVID‑19 pandemic followed by widespread adoption of remote and hybrid work. In parallel, a new cohort—Generation Z—has entered the labour market at scale, while Millennials have moved into managerial and leadership positions. These shifts matter because organisational design is ultimately about aligning people, work and strategy under changing conditions.

This updated paper revisits the relevance of cohort-linked values by (1) re‑examining generations as an analytical lens and its limitations, (2) summarising evidence‑supported characteristics of Millennials (Generation Y) and Generation Z, and (3) translating these characteristics into implications for organisational design—particularly structure, processes, rewards and people practices. The position taken is cautious and evidence‑based: generational labels can be a useful heuristic, but managers should treat them as hypotheses to test rather than facts to assume. The most reliable implications are those that also follow from broader organisational evidence on motivation, fairness, learning and psychological safety.

Generations as an analytical lens (and its limits)

Generational thinking in sociology is often traced to Mannheim’s discussion of generations as cohorts that share formative historical experiences and can develop broadly similar “generational locations” in how they interpret events. Importantly, Mannheim also emphasised that generations are not homogeneous: within‑generation differences (for example, by class, culture, gender and social position) can be as important as differences between cohorts (Mannheim, 1952).

In organisational research, the popularity of generational explanations has been accompanied by strong critique. Reviews argue that many studies mistakenly attribute differences to “generation” when they may be better explained by life stage (age), the economic or technological climate at the time of measurement (period effects), or sampling and measurement differences (Parry and Urwin, 2011; Rauvola, Rudolph and Zacher, 2019). Meta‑analytic evidence finds few systematic, practically meaningful generational differences in many work attitudes (Costanza et al., 2012), and recent work calls for abandoning stereotyped “generationalism” in favour of more precise explanations (Rudolph et al., 2020; Rudolph et al., 2020).

Accordingly, this paper uses generational categories for structuring discussion, while focusing on design implications that remain sensible regardless of whether observed differences are strictly “generational” or partly age/period driven. The managerial question is straightforward: how should organisations design work so that they attract, integrate, motivate and retain employees across age cohorts, while also meeting customer expectations shaped by digital and social change?

Cohort profiles: Generation Y and Generation Z

Definitions and boundary years

Birth‑year boundaries vary across authors and should be treated as approximate. In management writing, Millennials (Generation Y) are commonly positioned as those born in the 1980s and early‑to‑mid 1990s, while Generation Z is generally positioned as those born in the late 1990s through the early 2010s (Seemiller and Grace, 2016; Schroth, 2019). These conventions correspond to different formative experiences: Millennials grew up during the transition from analogue to digital, whereas Gen Z grew up with the internet, smartphones and social media as default infrastructure, and many entered the workforce during or after the pandemic period.

Millennials (Generation Y): what remains relevant in 2025

Millennials are now a heterogeneous group spanning early‑career to mid‑career and senior leadership roles. Across the evidence base, recurrent themes include preference for development opportunities, frequent feedback, meaningful work, and flexibility in how work is done. Importantly, many organisational responses originally framed as “Millennial demands” have become mainstream design features in competitive labour markets, such as continuous performance conversations, internal mobility, and learning and development as part of the employment bargain (Lyons and Kuron, 2014).

From an organisational design perspective, the most durable implications are not stereotypes about entitlement or disloyalty, but the normalisation of (a) ongoing capability development, (b) collaborative work enabled by digital tools, and (c) employer branding that integrates purpose and values into the employee experience. The design challenge has therefore shifted from “accommodating Millennials” to institutionalising modern people practices at scale and with fairness.

Generation Z: evidence‑supported characteristics and values

Generation Z is still early in its workforce life cycle, so evidence continues to develop. Nonetheless, peer‑reviewed sources converge on several patterns relevant to organisational design.

First, Gen Z is digitally immersed, with high comfort using technology, but not necessarily uniform “digital professionalism” (for example, norms for asynchronous collaboration, attention management, and boundary setting). Second, Gen Z tends to prefer fast learning cycles, clear expectations and rapid feedback—reflecting the interaction of early‑career life stage with technology‑accelerated norms (Schroth, 2019). Third, Gen Z places strong emphasis on authenticity, inclusion and fairness. Fourth, Gen Z shows heightened salience of well‑being and psychological safety, which matters for retention and engagement (Zahra, 2025).

These themes overlap with Millennials but are often more explicit and more closely tied to the post‑pandemic context: Gen Z’s entry into work has occurred alongside heightened uncertainty, accelerated automation and AI, and normalisation of hybrid work. This context increases the organisational value of clear development pathways, supportive supervision, and fair access to opportunities.

The contemporary organisational design context

To translate cohort-linked values into organisational design, it is useful to summarise what has changed in the “design environment” since 2011.

Digitalisation and platform ecosystems have lowered coordination costs, expanded information access, and increased the feasibility of networked, boundary‑spanning collaboration. This has shifted many organisations away from strict functional silos toward agile, project‑based, and ecosystem-oriented structures.

Remote and hybrid work has become a mainstream design choice. Evidence from a large field experiment indicates that a structured hybrid schedule can improve retention and job satisfaction without damaging performance, although effects depend on job type and implementation (Bloom, Han and Liang, 2024). Earlier experimental evidence also found productivity and attrition improvements for working from home, while noting potential promotion penalties if visibility is reduced (Bloom et al., 2015).

Finally, well‑being, learning and psychological safety have moved from “soft topics” to strategic design variables. Psychological safety predicts learning behaviour and voice in teams and supports adaptability in complex environments (Edmondson, 1999). Contemporary reviews emphasise its relevance for modern knowledge work and innovation (Edmondson and Lei, 2014). For younger cohorts who place high salience on mental health and inclusion, psychological safety becomes both a performance lever and a retention lever.

Implications for organisational design and management

Galbraith’s “star model” frames organisational design as the alignment of strategy, structure, processes, rewards and people practices (Galbraith, 1995). Using this lens, the question becomes: what changes in these elements make organisations attractive and effective for a multi-generational workforce that includes both Millennials and Gen Z, while also remaining robust to digital and hybrid work realities? The implications below focus on design features that are consistent with cohort-linked preferences and supported by organisational research more broadly.

1) Structure and coordination: from hierarchy to networked teams

Younger cohorts commonly expect collaboration, information access and the ability to contribute beyond narrow job boundaries. This does not mean hierarchy disappears; rather, organisations can move toward “networked hierarchy” designs that retain accountability while enabling lateral coordination. Practical structural choices include cross‑functional customer or product teams, clearer decision rights within teams, and explicit interfaces between functions.

Hybrid work increases the importance of coordination design. Organisations should define which decisions require synchronous interaction and which can be handled asynchronously, establish documentation norms, and design regular “cadences” (planning cycles, handoffs, retrospectives) that support distributed teamwork. Without these design choices, hybrid work can amplify misalignment and increase perceived unfairness between those with more and less access to decision-making and mentoring.

2) Processes: feedback, learning loops and internal mobility

Millennials and Gen Z consistently value development and feedback. Evidence‑aligned design responses include shorter feedback cycles (regular check‑ins rather than annual appraisals alone), structured onboarding, and early‑career scaffolding that makes expectations explicit. These processes should be complemented with internal mobility systems—project marketplaces, short-term assignments, and transparent postings—that allow employees to build skills without leaving the organisation.

A key managerial risk is misinterpreting preference for rapid feedback as entitlement. A better design interpretation is that digital environments normalise short learning loops; organisations that institutionalise coaching, frequent feedback and clear progression criteria can convert this preference into faster capability building and improved performance (Schroth, 2019).

3) Rewards and recognition: fairness, transparency and flexibility

Across cohorts, perceived fairness is a powerful driver of motivation and commitment. For younger cohorts—who often report lower institutional trust—transparent pay bands, explicit promotion criteria and consistent recognition practices reduce ambiguity and cynicism. Flexible benefit structures (for example, learning budgets, wellness support, and optional location flexibility where roles allow) enable personalisation without fragmenting organisational equity.

Where hybrid work is used, reward systems should be aligned to outcomes rather than visibility. Evidence that remote work can carry “promotion penalties” when visibility is reduced suggests organisations must deliberately design evaluation and talent processes to avoid proximity bias (Bloom et al., 2015).

4) People practices: inclusive leadership, psychological safety and well‑being

For Gen Z in particular, the salience of mental health and inclusion means that leadership style and climate are design variables. Psychological safety—shared belief that it is safe to take interpersonal risks such as speaking up, asking questions and admitting errors—predicts learning behaviour in teams and supports adaptability in complex environments (Edmondson, 1999). Contemporary reviews emphasise that psychological safety is especially valuable in innovation, knowledge work, and high‑reliability settings (Edmondson and Lei, 2014).

Organisations can design for psychological safety through leader behaviours that invite voice, norms that treat mistakes as learning opportunities (where appropriate), mechanisms for respectful dissent, and systems for workload management that reduce chronic strain. These choices align with Gen Z’s expressed preference for emotionally safe workplaces and can improve outcomes for all cohorts.

Hybrid work requires an additional layer of people practice design: distributed coaching, structured mentoring, and fair allocation of stretch assignments. Evidence suggests hybrid arrangements can improve retention without harming performance when designed intentionally; unmanaged hybrid work, by contrast, can reduce access to informal learning and mentorship (Bloom, Han and Liang, 2024).

5) Customer experience and branding: digital-first service and authenticity

As customers, younger cohorts tend to expect digital-first experiences and seamless self-service. Research on Gen Z consumers highlights that smart technologies strongly shape expectations of service encounters and the perceived quality of interactions, implying that organisations need robust omnichannel design, reliable digital service recovery and careful governance of data privacy and trust (Priporas, Stylos and Fotiadis, 2017).

Employee and customer expectations also intersect. Gen Z’s preference for authenticity increases the reputational cost of “performative” purpose statements that are not backed by operations and employee experience. In design terms, this reinforces alignment between the organisation’s external brand, internal people practices, and actual decision processes.

Synthesis table: cohort-linked preferences and design responses

Conclusion

The central intuition of the 2011 paper—that cohort-linked values influence organisational design—remains relevant, but the evidence base now supports a more nuanced conclusion. Strong research syntheses caution against treating “generational differences” as large, stable and explanatory on their own. Many supposed differences are small or inconsistent, and generational categories can become stereotypes that distract from actionable design levers such as leadership, job design and organisational climate (Parry and Urwin, 2011; Rudolph et al., 2020).

At the same time, the historical forces that shaped Millennials and Gen Z—digital ubiquity, economic volatility and post‑pandemic work—have accelerated design trends that align with many of their expressed preferences: flexibility, continuous learning, purposeful work and well‑being. The practical implication for organisations is to build adaptable design capabilities rather than “designing for a generation”: team-based coordination, hybrid-ready routines, transparent and fair reward systems, and people practices that support psychological safety and development.

Used carefully, generational insights can help as an entry point for hypothesis generation and stakeholder dialogue. The managerial discipline is to validate those hypotheses with local evidence (employee listening, performance metrics, retention and engagement patterns), and then design interventions that benefit the whole workforce while accommodating diverse individual needs within and across cohorts.

References 

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