IN my graduate class on Dynamics of Change and Leadership in the Workplace, I pose a question that unsettles the Zoom room. Most of my students are government employees. Some of them supervise divisions; others manage units. They come to class with years of service etched into their posture. I ask them: How do you observe millennials behaving in your offices?
The answers come quickly.
“They have their own world.”
“They don’t even say good morning.”
“They go absent without notice.”
I can sense a frustration here. Not anger, however. But something closer to disbelief.
The image they paint is familiar. A young employee arrives in the office, earbuds in place, eyes fixed on a screen. Minimal greetings. Minimal small talk. When conflict arises, silence. When dissatisfaction grows, sudden absence. No formal turnover. No conversation. Just disappearance.
For supervisors trained in a culture of hierarchy, courtesy, and procedure, this situation, or condition, if you will, feels like an erosion. Erosion of respect. Erosion of discipline. Erosion of the invisible glue that once held public offices together.
And yet I find myself resisting the ease of generational blame.
It is almost tempting to say that social media has reshaped character. That the norm of Facebook and TikTok has replaced the norm of accountability. That a culture of instant posting has produced a culture of instant quitting. There is truth in there, I must say. In the world of millennials, communication has become brief, confrontation is avoided, and presence is optional.
But public institutions must also examine themselves.
Millennials are entering a bureaucracy that has changed significantly since their supervisors first started. Many offices remain rigid, procedural, and slow to recognize initiative. Younger employees are often told to follow instructions, not to ask why.
Creativity is praised in theory but restrained in practice. When they withdraw, is it always apathy? Or quiet protest?
Still, certain behaviors cannot be romanticized. Public service is not a casual engagement. It is stewardship. An employee who leaves without notice not only inconveniences the supervisor. He disrupts a system that citizens depend on.
Government work carries a moral weight. Papers delayed mean services are delayed. Services delayed mean people waiting.
This is where my concern deepens.
Five to ten years from now, many of these millennials will sit where today’s supervisors sit. They will approve budgets. They will design programs and craft public policies. Governance will no longer be something they criticize from the sidelines. It will be something they carry.
If the habits of disengagement persist, public institutions will suffer. A government cannot function on silence. It cannot operate on unread messages and unfinished tasks. Leadership requires presence. Visible presence. Accountable presence.
Yet I also see promise.
Millennials are bold in ways previous generations were not. They question inefficiency. They are comfortable with technology that government today urgently needs to embrace. They speak of mental health, transparency, inclusion. They dislike hypocrisy. They are impatient with corruption. And to me, these are not weaknesses. Rather, these are resources.
The real issue, I tell my class, is culture.
Workplace culture is not neutral. It is taught, modeled, and reinforced. If senior officials greet their staff with dignity, younger employees learn dignity. If supervisors communicate expectations clearly rather than merely command, discipline acquires meaning. Authority without mentorship breeds resentment. Freedom without responsibility breeds disorder.
And both extremes are dangerous.
In our class, which is composed of seasoned supervisors and aspiring leaders, I sense the transition already unfolding. Government offices across the country are in the middle of a generational handover. Not abrupt, however. But inevitable.
We can lament the fading of old manners. Or we can consciously shape new ones.
Governance in the coming decade will reflect the habits being formed today. If we allow disengagement to define a generation, we participate in weakening the institutions we claim to protect. If we invest in formation, dialogue, and shared standards of professionalism, we participate in strengthening them.
Millennials are not the end of governance as we know it. Nor are they its automatic salvation. They are, like every generation before them, a mixture of fragility and force.
And what matters now is whether those of us who currently hold authority choose to criticize millennials from a distance or to guide these future leaders from within.
Email me at rgmoldez@gmail.com
