Originally published on Youthradio.org, the premier source for youth generated news throughout the globe.
By Robyn Gee
Youth Radio recently profiled a company called Mr. Youth, a marketing agency targeting youth consumers. They claim to be experts in engaging young people, which includes enticing young people to remain on their own payroll for long periods of time. They were recently voted one of the best places to work in New York City by Crain's magazine.
Mr. Youth recently collaborated with Intrepid, to conduct a study with the goal of finding out how Millennials, or people born in the 1980s, would design and manage a company. The results of the study provide insight into the minds of young people today, and how our companies will be run in the near future.
The study took two groups of Millennials, one in the U.S. and one in the U.K. and challenged them with the task of creating a model for how to run a fashion retail company, including the organizational structure, product development, and marketing aspects of the company.
They found consistent preferences among both groups of young people. First of all, Millennials did not write in a definitive CEO to their company, but instead organized company staff into teams with expert areas of focus. However, 82 percent of the 1,000 Millennials included in the study said that it is important to have a staff that can do each others' jobs.
In addition, Millennials gave equal weight to design and creativity, as finance and management, and valued having diverse opinions when it came to decision-making. The study showed that Millennials desire continual change, and a constantly challenging environment. When it comes to company hierarchies, Millennials are not persuaded by seniority or systems of tenure, and they believe strongly that, "Authority is earned and proven through direct interactions, not given blindly based on titles and experience."
Millennials designed a company where each employee starts at the bottom level, and works their way up, so that each employee gets face to face contact with consumers.
To read more, check out their study here.
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