Are gen Ys being coddled at work?

TABLE tennis, video games, bean bags. No, it’s not the local youth centre — this is what it takes to keep gen Y happy at work. But is it healthy?

TABLE tennis, video games, bean bags. No, it’s not the local youth centre — this is what it takes to keep gen Y happy at work. But is it healthy to treat your employees like children?

It seems every company these days is bending over backwards to come up with ever-more outrageous perks. Massage sessions, nap pods, paid sabbaticals and even acupuncture are not unheard-of in today’s hip and happening offices.

Software company Atlassian last week took out the top honour in BRW’s annual Best Places to Work list — office perks include boutique beer on tap, a lolly pick ‘n’ mix bar, video games, ping pong tables and even a ‘Mood-App’ to keep track of employees’ emotions.

Don’t get us wrong — Atlassian genuinely sounds like a great place to work, and they deserve recognition. So does Melbourne-based tech outfit Envato, which was recently named Australia’s Coolest Tech Company.

Vodafone has also gotten in on the action, going full-on ‘Google’ in its bid to attract Gen Ys with ping pong tables, meditation areas, spiral tube slides, Xbox and foosball in its Hobart call centre.

From a business standpoint, all these perks probably make sense. Research shows nearly half of Australians are unhappy in their jobs and more than half say they’re planning a career change in the next two years.

Software company Atlassian has been named Australia’s Best Place to Work.

Job hopping has become the new norm. It’s cheaper to fork out for a beer fridge and a pool table than have to replace and retrain some 24-year-old hotshot every 18 months. Millennials are notoriously fickle, and researchers say it’s not just the older generation’s imagination: Gen Ys are, in fact, entitled.

As San Diego State University psychology professor Jean Twenge said last month: “This is a cultural change. People hear me and think I’m complaining about young people. I’m not. This is what young people are saying about themselves.”

Professor Twenge was discussing a study of 50,000 year 12 students, Generation Me, which found youngsters both highly materialistic and “not necessarily willing to work for the money they need to buy the items they so greatly value”.

While those born from the late ‘80s onwards value equality and are highly tolerant, their sense of entitlement is a facet of narcissism, and their expectations are out of pace with reality, she said. “It was a generation that was told they were all special and then enters the workforce to find they’re not.”

Businesses seem to have cottoned on to the new reality. The mantra has evolved from ‘The Customer Is Always Right’ to ‘The Millennial Is Always Right, and Requires Regular Naps’.

Your grandad never got scheduled PlayStation breaks — he had to wheel his mobile hot-desk 15 miles uphill in the snow every morning to reach his open-plan, flat-structured office.

Whatever happened to turning up to work and doing your job?

(For the record, news.com.au has a beanbag somewhere, but no one uses it.)

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