Millennials (those people born between 1981 and 1996) have had a rough press in the last few years. Pictured as being entitled, narcissistic and self-centred it would be easy to think that they would be a dismal prospect to have as colleagues or employees. Given that these people will now be in the 22-37 year old age range, they're already making up a fair chunk of the workforce.

Aside from being potentially deeply patronising, is there any truth in this or is yet another example of self-appointed experts creating an issue they can earn a few bob in consultancy fees from?

A recent PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) report describes clear differences with Millennials, including

• Only 18 percent of those surveyed expected to stay with their current employer for the long term, with over a quarter expecting to have six employers or more in their work life.
• 38 percent felt older senior management do not relate to younger workers, and 34 percent said their personal drive was intimidating to other generations.
• Career progression is a top priority for millennials, who expect to rise rapidly through the organisation. Competitive salaries came second place.

It doesn't take much thought or imagination to conclude that these aspirations apply to any group of people in the 20-30s age range. There is nothing unique here about this specific generation. However these kind of conclusions and headlines are now commonplace.

All generations such as Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964), Generation X (1965 to 1980) and Millennials tend to view the previous generation in a similar way. In the early part of our working lives most of us are at our most ambitious, creative and idealistic - this applies to all people, in all cultures, across time. 

In 2012, a wide-ranging meta analysis (1) (i.e. analysing the results from multiple, different studies) looked at generational work differences in three key areas: 

• commitment to the organisation
• job satisfaction
• intention to leave

The researchers found no significant attitudinal differences which could be explained by generation. They found some differences that could be explained by age however - for example, older workers were slightly less likely to leave their jobs. This was found to be most likely due to older workers having more autonomy and expertise in their roles, and therefore greater job satisfaction.

Making a special case of a specific generation is misleading and unhelpful and creates yet another opportunity to foster difference, and pitch "us" against "them". It promotes a false need for organisations to provide more training and development to fix this "problem". The key message for employers is that you should not shape your management and recruitment strategies around different generational values. At least, not until there is real evidence that those differences exist.

So forget the "problem with Millennials". The iGen (Generation Z) generation however, could well be another matter... See our forthcoming article on Stress and Anxiety for further details .

Law careers are changing. The pace and nature of client work, the impact of new technology, global markets, diversity targets and changing career aspirations are leading to changes both in opportunity and expectation for UK lawyers. We know from our work with law firms that retaining good lawyers and providing a stimulating and satisfying work environment is challenging. Turnover rates can be high in competitive markets and time needed to induct new lawyers into complex and fast moving client work inevitably impacts performance.

Over the last 18 months we have looked specifically at these areas, tapping into the experiences of a number of UK lawyers at differing levels of experience and in varying law firm sizes. [Our findings are available here in our recent report]. In a forthcoming series of short articles we assess the key challenges of retention, performance, well-being and gender diversity, and offer some solutions.

​Here, we look at retention.

​Just over 23% of lawyers in our survey indicated that they expected to remain within their current firm for between 3 and 5 years.  This included nearly 40% of senior associates with a further 10% of them intending to leave within the next 1 to 2 years.  A further 33% of lawyers indicated that they didn't know how long they intended to stay.

The challenge for all businesses to be able to attract and retain the best people they can is well known and much talked about. Many firms turn to their relatively low staff turnover or the number of applicants to their recruitment initiatives and conclude that all is well. But is this right?

Not infrequently we work with people on development programmes and workshops who, to put it charitably, are not exactly 'on fire' with enthusiasm for their job or their firm. Most of them are not doing a poor job but they are not performing anywhere near as well as they could be - meaning that both firm and lawyer suffer. They frequently feel stuck and undervalued in the role and would prefer to be doing something different – or differently. This is not where optimal performance or job satisfaction comes from. From the wider business perspective this also creates vulnerability; the risk of good people being poached by other firms - always a concern - becomes greater.
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What does it take to attract and retain good people who are committed and perform well? 

​Legal careers are changing. The pace and nature of client work, the impact of new technology, global markets/Brexit, diversity targets and career aspirations are leading to changes both in opportunity and expectation for lawyers.