New research by Ashridge Business School reveals frequent job changes and lack of life skills

Based on a global Arabic and English language survey of 2,900 managers and graduates, and 100 in-depth interviews, the report Culture Shock! Generation Y and their managers around the world analyses the relationship between Gen Y graduates (aged under 30), and their leaders.

The study identifies comparisons between the Middle East, UK, Europe, India, Malaysia and China, revealing Gen Y graduates are similar across the world, but the gulf between them and their managers differs.

Key research findings:
1. Lack of Skills
Frequent job changes and lack of life skills mean managers are seriously concerned future leaders are not gaining real in-depth experience.

Managers feel strongly that today's graduates lack 'life skills' compared with previous generations, and recommend that they get work experience, and develop their emotional intelligence, communication and people skills.

2. Middle Eastern Culture
A rapidly changing culture and society in the Middle East has a major impact on the relationship between Gen Y and their managers, where cultural history was found to impact Gen Y's expectation of promotion, of women in management and of the business sector in which to work in particular.

3. Retention Issues
Graduates want a varied career, have little patience and will leave a job quickly if it doesn't meet their own personal ideals.

Gen Y tend to stay in a job for only two years.

Middle Eastern graduates were second most loyal of those surveyed, with 75% intending to stay in their current role for two years and graduates from the UK least loyal with only 57% planning to stay for this time.

4. Gen Y Characteristics
Gen Y graduates are regarded as highly knowledgeable, digitally integrated, globally and socially aware, unconventional and very confident, and all of these characteristics need to be managed and developed.

Although managers admire the intelligence and energy of young professionals, they dislike graduates' pursuit of fame and recognition, self-focus, over-confidence and lack of teamwork and respect.
Motivation also proves a bigger problem for managers in the Middle East than the other regions surveyed.

5. Mismatched Expectations
A mismatch of expectations between managers and graduates is a pressing issue, 29% managers in the Middle East claim managing graduate expectations is their overriding concern.

Graduates have high expectations of responsibility, progression and challenging, interesting work where they can make changes, whereas managers expect excellent skills, teamwork and adaptation to the organisation.

Unlike their managers, graduates do not 'live to work', they 'work to live'. They want jobs with flexibility and are less likely to do work at home than their managers.

Rory Hendrickz, Director of Ashridge Business School in the Middle East, commented, "Generation Y has grown up with social media and mobile phones, and against a background of rapid changes in technology and shifting political and cultural norms. Today's young professionals in the Middle East have different priorities from previous generations. Gen Y is already radically altering the employment landscape globally, and a new, growing workforce will soon be stepping up and challenging traditional models within companies."

He continued, "By capitalising on the unique contributions and strengths of this generation, a better workforce as a whole can be created in this region. All generations need to review their differences and find new ways of working for the future - both managers and Gen Y need to adapt to the changing world of work."