Grey-haired hiring managers are reportedly getting fed up with sprightly graduates coming into the workplace with a shopping list of demands. Generation Y workers – loosely defined as those born after 1982 – are not merely grateful to pick up a pay cheque; they are keen to dictate the way that they work. But is labelling individuals in this way useful?

Generation Y has a distinctive profile in the workplace, says Christos Manolis, the talent supply manager for UK, Ireland and Greece at Procter & Gamble. Work-life balance is a top priority, are challenging work, early career development opportunities and pay – graduates expect to have the lifestyle that they enjoyed while living at home with their parents.

This new crop of workers are distinguished by their technological savvy, Manolis says. “[Generation Y] consider it very natural to work remotely and they get very frustrated when technology is not there or if it does not work.” Cue a new generation of perks: paid-for broadband at home, shiny laptops, the latest mobile phones and instant messaging.

Technology is integrated into all aspects of graduates’ lives. According to a survey of 18 to 24-year-olds by the Chartered Management Institute with Ordnance Survey, 77 per cent said that the internet was very useful for work, 79 per cent use it as a source of entertainment and 61 per cent see it as a social space.

Generation Y workers are the first “digital natives” in the workplace, says Paul Redmond, the head of careers and employability at the University of Liverpool. “They are able to be more flexible in their attitudes and far less likely to focus upon typical organisational careers,” he says. “What they want is change, challenge and choice.” Some employers recognise and appreciate the individual talents of Generation Y, Redmond says. “I was with City bankers and they were talking about how skilled Gen Y [workers] are at multitasking, switching from different technologies, learning things very quickly, picking up new knowledge and handling information. “[They are] perhaps a bit better at handling uncertainty as well. They are also very entrepreneurial or intrapre-neurial.”

Employers are rethinking traditional career development to keep graduates happy, Redmond says. “Employers are looking to deploy [Generation Y workers] to different parts of an organisation within the first few years. They are also looking at how they can connect them to mentors, coaches or industry champions far earlier than in earlier generations.”

Stephen Overell, an associate director of the Work Foundation, a not-for-profit research and consultancy organisation, is sceptical about the Generation Y label. “I think that workers of all ages have quite distinct sets of needs. You have to look at the individual. Generalising about age groups and demographics should be treated with the utmost caution.”

Instead, Overell prefers to examine change in the workplace chronologically. Flexibility and personal fulfilment are more prominent in discussions about work today than they were in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and technology has a lot to do with it, he says.

But while the under25s have been quick to embrace new technology, it’s the mass diffusion of computers at home and in the workplace that is significant. “The serious [discussion] is [about] how computers and communications technology have changed work,” Overell says. “I think that affects people across the spectrum of work, not just concentrated in a certain age group.”

Times Recommends

• Inspirational leadership
• How to get a new job
• The reluctant CEO