We’re counting on you, millennials!

Unwittingly, millennials have kept many marketing experts around the world busy for two decades. They were probed, described, scrutinized, analyzed, labeled like no other generation before. And the good people added a layer with their criticisms, their generalizations and their caricatures.

And now this generation of young people… is no longer so young.

The oldest in the cohort have passed the 40-year mark. They have gray hair, children, a house and a professional track record strong enough to reach management positions.

Moreover, the 2021 municipal elections captured the imagination by allowing 109 millennials to be elected mayor. Three of the province’s largest cities – Laval, Longueuil and Sherbrooke – and four ministries are currently led by people who were not born when Diana and Prince Charles married.

In the world of sport, in that of the arts, as well as in business, young people born between 1980 and 1995 are taking charge. With their values, their vision and a long list of applications in their iPhone, they are changing things.

This observation is at the origin of the large file that you will be able to read today and tomorrow in all sections of The Press. You will discover impressive young people there, full of convictions and energy.

Despite everything that has been said about millennials, also called Y, we must see their accession to decision-making positions as a source of hope. With their ideals, their skills, their diplomas, their qualities and their priorities, they are able to bring about improvements from which we will all benefit.

Consider young people’s ease with technology. Let them hurry to let us benefit from it by making it easier to make appointments and reservations in a few clicks, by allowing consultations of all kinds by videoconference, by making waiting lists more transparent, by simplifying the exchange information, automatically generating statistics and useful data. Stories of lost faxes^⁠1 in hospitals should be a thing of the past, just like paper-only court records.

If a young student was able in 90 days, all alone at home, to create an application awaited for years to recharge OPUS cards with a phone^⁠2imagine what a group of young, motivated employees could accomplish if we gave them the challenge of making our lives easier.

Logically, the result should not take too long. Because millennials have a reputation for wanting everything, right away. They say they don’t like to wait. It’s better this way !

Once in charge, this could allow them to find ways to bring about change and improvement more quickly than in the past. It can’t always take 15 years to add a reserved bus lane on a boulevard^⁠3 or 19 years to set up a real one-stop shop for CPEs^⁠4.

The impatience of Y, fueled daily by ultra-high speed internet, is even necessary when it comes to finding solutions to humanity’s greatest challenge: climate change.

All experts agree that we no longer have the luxury of waiting before acting. “The environmental issue was not concrete enough before. But now, we receive alerts every two weeks for tornadoes! It’s a lot of pressure, but we have no choice to improve society, otherwise we’ll all burn,” Irdens Exantus, a 29-year-old actor who takes a thoughtful look at society, told me. fueled by his work in youth centers and his Haitian origins.

His concerns are quite generalized. A majority (60%) of millennials are stressed by climate change, an increase of 8 points in just one year, according to a recent Léger study. It’s not for nothing that we hear so much about eco-anxiety…

“I would like elected officials of my age to make the link between the economic crisis, inflation, inequalities and the ecological crisis. It is the most important. For me, it’s the same crisis, it’s a crisis of overproductivity, of excessive capitalism,” Nicolas Lemieux, a 30-year-old community worker who works in Pointe-Saint-Charles and who is preparing to to obtain a master’s degree in political science.

Change society for the better

Millennials are said to perform better in collaboration, far from the protocol hierarchy. Since they grew up in an egalitarian world, they value competence over titles. “For me, a human is a human,” says Catherine Dubé, a 32-year-old business leader who is raising two children and who sits on the board of directors of Investissement Québec.

A person’s age and seniority within an organization should not be determining factors in establishing the credibility or legitimacy of their comments and questions, she explains. All points of view should be equal.

What she called “multiple votes linked to experience” is no longer necessary, says the woman who is not offended by being sometimes challenged by young people she hired three years ago. months earlier. “We also need to flatten out organizations, give autonomy, make people responsible. »

I feel that this vision will shake, even shock, many people in their fifties and sixties who have worked hard to gain experience and climb the ladder. But instead of seeing this as a worrying rejection of conventions and established structures, I prefer to believe that it will promote more productive decision-making and debate.

Only time will tell if I am overly optimistic. But we have seen so many meetings stiffened by decorum lead to nothing that we can only hope for better. We must dream better, as Daniel Bélanger sings. And it certainly can’t hurt to think differently to solve new types of problems.

I also hope that millennials will improve our relationship with work, long marked by an sometimes unhealthy imbalance causing divorce, professional burnout, mental health problems, children feeling neglected and more.

They won’t really have the choice to do so. Because young people from generation Z (born from 1996 to 2010) are taking advantage of the labor shortage to impose their values, particularly in terms of balancing work-family-leisure. The heavy and perilous responsibility of redefining the organization and place of work will therefore rest, increasingly, on the shoulders of millennials.

The movement has already started. Positive initiatives are multiplying. Organizations offer incentives to play sports, quit smoking, use public transport, eat organic and local vegetables, and offer training on anxiety. Behaviors that are beneficial for all of society.

I am also counting on millennials to implement policies promoting equity and the professional development of women, immigrants and minorities who are little talked about, such as people living with autism spectrum disorder. And so that the needs of young, overwhelmed parents, women going through menopause and people in their sixties who want to slow down can all be heard. This would be consistent with their discourse on inclusion and diversity, right?

It’s a mental health issue, after all. And for thirty-somethings, it’s no longer a taboo. “We can talk about the antidepressants we take as if they were Tylenol, without embarrassment,” confirms Irdens Exantus.

“Less goods, more connections”

Millennials have been accused of being glued to their phones, preferring social media to face-to-face meetings. However, in Moffet in Témiscamingue, mayor Alexandre Binette, 40, is multiplying initiatives “so that the world enjoys” in the microvillage of 210 souls. This often involves gatherings, whether at the community kitchen, in the transformed park or at a new festival.

“Fewer goods, more connections,” summarizes the ETS engineering graduate. Its strategy: focus on a host of small initiatives that don’t cost much, but which can make a difference in the quality of life, as Radio-Canada described it as a “miracle.” ⁵.

While the harmful effects of individualism are criticized, will millennials reverse the trend thanks to their inexhaustible need to have pleasure?

Of course, it is always difficult to generalize, to attach labels to entire generations. Some Y do not recognize themselves in the descriptions that the pollsters give them, others are the perfect incarnation. But one thing is certain, youth comes with its share of ideals and the desire to change the world. And with all the challenges we face, we need millennials to shake up the cage and think outside the box to improve our world.

They have everything they need to act, so I want us to shout to them: go ahead, we’re counting on you!