Millennials

Currently celebrating its 25th anniversary in business, Quincy-based Arbella Insurance Group is regularly recognized as one of the best places to work by the Boston Business Journal, and its CEO was recently recognized for his “galvanizing” civic leadership. Arbella’s dedication to giving back may help partially explain the loyalty from its approximately 1,000 employees — 70 percent of whom have been with the company for five or more years, 34 percent for at least 15 years.

We know the millennial generation is the most racially diverse in American history, but the question is: Do they know it?

Much has been made about their diversity being key to the liberal attitudes characteristic of this younger generation. Politicians have surveyed and courted the non-white youth vote as if it’s a defined political bloc. Millennials’ higher tolerance of other races and groups has been praised as a conscious progressive stance.

To measure the impact of a social enterprise, sometimes all it takes is a suitcase. The item in question was a piece of missing luggage, which caused momentary panic for Tom D’Eri ’11 and his parents on a recent trip to New York. After looking around, they were dumbstruck to realize what had happened: D’Eri’s 23-year-old brother, who has autism, had already claimed the bag.

An up-and-coming software company in the heart of the Silicon Prairie is not only easing the major pain point of Generation Y — finding a good job, when 40 percent of all unemployed workers are millennials — but it’s also completely built and run by millennials themselves, from the co-founders to the company’s “Job Squad” of campus intern-ambassadors.

Bentley University’s Millennial Preparedness research study raised a number of issues about millennials in the workplace. In the coming weeks, PreparedU, in a series entitled Generational Voices, will present opinions from millennials and non-millennials alike on a wide variety of these issues. These views may contrast or coincide, but each will provide perspective designed to enhance insights resulting from the PreparedU data.

This week, millennial actress and recent college graduate Emma Watson gave a powerful speech to the United Nations, launching the UN’s new solidarity campaign called He for She, which urges men to look at gender equality as more than a women’s issue — and for women to stop thinking that feminism is anti-men.

NowUKnow examines millennial minds and issues, informed by research data, expert opinion, and reportage about the professional and personal lives of Generation Y.

We are on the brink of a technological revolution that will lean hard on fresh ideas from young start-ups and reward innovative millennials with membership in a small but rising meritocracy.

Bentley President Gloria Larson joined Bloomberg Radio hosts Pimm Fox and Carol Massar on September 24 to continue an examination of millennials in the workplace. Larson first visited the show this past November to discuss initial findings from Bentley’s preparedness research survey and this latest appearance marked the launch of a monthly series that will examine topics such as higher education curricula, experiential learning, and collaboration between business and higher education.

Millennials report that they want fulfilling work at companies that allow them to make a positive impact on society. 

But when it comes time to look at a very generous job offer from that big financial institution that just paid a huge fine for tax evasion, do millennials let money and career trump ethical irresponsibility? When a company like CVS decides to stop selling tobacco, do millennials applaud its virtue or question its fiduciary responsibility to shareholders?