Moving On Up

A large percentage of Baby Boomers took for granted that they would work for the same company for their entire professional career. Don't expect that kind of loyalty from Gen Y. Many of us have no compunction moving on if we find a more attractive role — or one that suits us better — elsewhere.

"I've got a few Generation Y employees," says Baby Boomer and AGL CIO Cesare Tizi. "If I stand back and say what's the most outstanding thing about Y Generation people, [it] is that they're in an enormous hurry. They are in an enormous hurry to be successful, they're in an enormous hurry to move on and get the things of life that they want, and they have very different values and ethics when it comes to the work environment."

Alfie John, a Gen Y programmer at Mailguard, a Web mail and Internet filtering company, explains the typical Gen Y attitude. "I think my generation is all 'stay in a position for two years and then move on', compared to the loyalty of the other generation," John says.

Anne Parkes, who works in IT at Sydney Airport, agrees. "I do think that we certainly don't have the loyalty to one company, and if we get a better opportunity then we definitely move on," Parkes says.

Of course, this could just be due to our age rather than our generation. Turbulent lifestyles, whether the result of living fast or the by-products of misspent youth, are not unique to Gen Y. Baby Boomer Gulcin Cribb, director of Information Services at Bond University, says that she did the same thing when she was our age. "I just packed my bags and went from one country to another," Cribb says. "I lived in three different countries in four years, and worked in [those] different countries."