Life of 'Y'

Every generation exhibits behavioral traits that are unique. More so if the era they live-in is a transformed one, in comparison to the previous one. Gen Y, in particular, live in an era that has seen change far greater than any other. These changes have populated both the macro and micro contexts. The resultant generational effect has been a reversed happiness quotient for Gen Y. This post attempts to explain the new quotient and its implications on engaging Gen Y.


Taniya is a young MBA, fresh out of the college, working, independent and a gadget-addict. She works as a manager with a reputed brand and loves to flaunt her professional status. Financially she is secure and despite being a fresher feels she has career security. However by her own confession she leads a ‘Calendar Life’. She no more has enough time for herself, her friends and family. Birthdays, festivals and even calling home have to be accommodated during weekends, since the ‘calendar’ simply does not allow anything except work schedule. Nobody to go back to at home, not enough social bonding with friends make loneliness a habit for Taniya.

Is this only Taniya’s Story or is this more endemic with Gen Y’s new state of happiness? Research involving considerable in-depths with Gen Y shows the emergence of a paradox that permeates throughout the happiness quotient of Gen Y and paradoxes are spun in all these wellness parameters comprising the happiness quotient:

Material Wellness

•Security-Stability Paradox: Gen Y have more career security as compared to Gen X. However while Gen X had more stable jobs, Gen Y, despite having high career & financial security, have high degree of career instability. This instability stems from the environmental uncertainty and also from the fact that this generation is highly aspirational & not averse to taking risks.

•Income-Maintenance Paradox: The financial security of Gen Y has also brought with itself financial prosperity for this generation. However they also have high maintenance cost and cost of living as compared to Gen X, primarily because of rising inflation and peer pressure.

Physiological Wellness

•Pace-Time Paradox: The pace at which Gen Y operates is very high, yet they have less time as compared to Gen X. Many respondents have said that they many times feel that ‘it’s a race’. As per the recent household survey by the Directorate of Census Operations, Bangalore (India) around 0.35 million people eat-out every day in this city alone, mostly out of necessity. According to a study by Assocham, no fixed meal hours and non-stop telephonic sessions are causing gastric problems, together with fatigue and headaches that might have detrimental consequences on the health in the long run.

•Opportunity – Health Paradox: Gen Y has far greater opportunities, especially on the professional frontier, like global postings, development & learning avenues etc. than Gen X. However the cost of prosperity & a rush to make most of these opportunities in as less time as possible has meant greater health scares, obesity problems and stress-related symptoms in Gen Y. Many Gen Y respondents told me that they find it ‘difficult to relax’.

Emotional Wellness

•Contacts-Friends Paradox: Gen Y has swelling number of virtual friends but they have very few people whom they can call friends. Gen X had fewer friends but they were friends for life. The emotional security hence that Gen Y has is quite low as compared to Gen X.

•Space-Loneliness Paradox: Gen Y has definitely greater space for themselves that they love too at times. Despite this they suffer from prolonged loneliness. In his book ‘Loneliness’ John Capcioppo had shown how loneliness negatively affects human physiology and emotionally disconnects them from others.

•Relationships-Bonding Paradox: Gen Y has comparatively more relationship choices like ‘Single’, ‘Live-in’, ‘LGBT’ etc. than Gen X, yet they have far less cohesiveness and bonding in most of their relationships.

Social Wellness

•Freedom-Support Paradox: Gen Y has far greater individual freedom & autonomy than Gen X but they also have less support system than the latter. The social & family support systems for Gen X were better & stronger than for Gen Y.

•Festivals-Celebration paradox: Gen Y has far more festivities & special days on offer to celebrate than the counted festivals for Gen X. However for Gen Y the scope to celebrate these festivals & special days is limited. Festivals, birthdays, anniversaries, friendship day etc. all get relegated to already crowded weekends.

Overall it shows a depth-deficit for Gen Y & although their material wellness has improved, their physiological, emotional and social wellness has drastically declined. This has resulted in a reversed happiness quotient for this generation. In other words, whatever were unhappiness factors for Gen X has transformed into happiness factors for Gen Y and vice-versa.

Implication of Reversed Happiness Quotient in Engaging Gen Y
Organizations need to be cognizant of the fact that happiness is an outcome of engagement. The ability of an organization to create and/or retain this engagement among Gen Y employees depends on a large extent whether they identify & appreciate this reversed equation of happiness. Organizations engagement efforts tend to be skewed in favour of compensation, career issues of employees or in other words in further strengthening their already strong material wellness. Whereas what the gen Y is really missing-out on is emotional, physiological and social wellness. There is the ‘single Gen Y’ who has no one to go back to, there are ‘DINK’ couples who earn a lot, have no kids and have hardly time for each other. Their emotional securities are low; they miss social & family support system and live under high stress. Engagement efforts of the organization should focus more on improving the emotional, physiological and social wellness of their employees rather than just concentrating on the material wellness. For example there is an Indian IT-giant that has taken initiative to educate the young mothers amongst their employees that how the first 1000 days of a baby are very important & why the mother should spend more time with their babies during these days. They also offer less demanding roles to such employees till the time they think that they can give work more priority. Engagement that results from such efforts is much more profound and sustainable & impacts the happiness quotient of the Gen Y significantly.

(First appeared on Sept. 2, 2012 -  'Gen Y: The Reversed Happiness Quotient' as an invitational post in a blog on employee happiness satrted by a non-profit consulting company Institute for Wellbeing Management, Bellevue University, Nebraska, U.S.A.) (http://employeehappinesstipstrickstools.com/2012/09/gen-y/)

(Few Corporate speaking enagagements on Engaging Gen Y, following the blogpost like-
Tata Consutancy Services - Dec. 7, 2012
Cloudnine Hospitals - Oct. 18, 2012
indicated confirmation of the findings of our research on Gen Y , a glimpse of which was projected in the above blogpost.)