Older Workers Just Want a Little Flex Time

The problem with younger workers today, I’m often told, is that they’re entitled. Today’s 20-somethings expect flexible hours, big raises and short commutes. They assume it’s fine to work from home and want to make friends (gasp) with their coworkers.

Lost in the curmudgeonly fist-shaking about what younger workers want is that older workers want these things, too. Take flexibility. Seventy-seven percent of millennials say flexible work hours would enable them to be more productive, while 50% of millennials and 44% of Generation Z (can we please get these young’uns a better name?) ranked flexibility around hours and location third when choosing a job, after compensation and workplace culture. But this is not unusual: Although millennials want control over their schedules, a PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC report concluded, “so do non-millennials, in equal numbers.”