In the 1990's I managed a group of scary alpha Gen X women. I witnessed these women becoming uber-successful in sales, start having their babies and slowly figuring out how to "have it all". I watched them try to satisfy their ridiculously high expectations for themselves as moms, employees and wives, with a great deal of doubt, guilt and stress. As a single woman without any children (unless you count dogs) I was in some ways jealous and in some ways grateful I wasn't trying to hoe that tough field.
However hard it was for them, that generation of women must have really figured things out because the
millenium moms I'm dealing with now are nothing short of frightening in their ability to juggle kids, high powered jobs, husbands and still have time for running marathons, doing yoga and blogging. Instead of managing these women, today many of them are my clients, contractors and colleagues. I have to say I am impressed and not a little bit intimidated by their ability to juggle all these things. (Since there doesn't seem to be a definitive on the year that separates Generation X from Generation Y, I'm just going to say they're kind of on the XY cusp born in the '70s or later. )
According to the July 2013 issue of Forbes the generation known as Millennials, or Generation Y, are re-inventing the word charity. Although this demographic (those born between the 1980s to the early 2000s) has been referred to as lazy, unmotivated "slacktivists" the Huffington Post reported in July of 2013 that Gen Y is increasingly looking for new and innovative ways to give back. I myself wrote about this a few weeks ago as one of the 5 reasons why I personally would rather work with Gen Y.
Companies are marketing new socially responsible products and services that appeal to this generation based on effortless and hassle-free ways to give back. Here are five products/services in this category that appeal to Millennials because they include a charitable component as part of their business model:
