Many baby boomers adhere to the old adage, “Don’t leave one job until you have another.”
But this isn’t always true with the younger generation of workers.
Many millennials and Gen Xers leave one job and pursue another because of long-term career goals, even if this means they must move home on an interim basis or surf couches for a few months.
Many older workers find it hard to come to grips with this new workplace reality and feel uneasy when they watch young professionals jump from job to job every few years.
Perhaps boomers are just a little more jaded and accustomed to a world of work that is fraught with ethics violations, financial scandals and corporate greed, making us think anyone today is crazy to give up one job before finding another.
But Gen Xers and the Me 2.0 generations see things differently.
Where once it was expected that workers would maintain a degree of loyalty to the companies and organizations where they first learned the skills and gained the experience vital for their future career, it’s now expected that loyalty goes both ways.
Younger workers no longer feel indebted to a company just because the company gave them an opportunity or opened a door for them. Companies must continue to nurture and allow workers to grow and advance. If not, it’s likely young workers will look elsewhere to advance their career.
And sometimes this means quitting their current job to develop skills or continue their education in a way that will get them closer to their career goals.
It’s not just about buckling down for a paycheck. More and more, careers are, as they should be, part of a person’s long-term goals as well as about the short-term gains of salary, benefits, and job security that we boomers have valued for so long.
