If you lead an IT shop today, chances are at least some of the employees who report to you are millennials--young adults in their 20s. Millennials - also known as Generation Y - think about life and work differently than older boom and gen X employees, and hiring and retaining them requires management that understands their needs and a business environment to match, says Jim Finkelstein, president and CEO of FutureSense, a consulting firm that specializes in organization and people.

A recent survey of millennials in the workplace conducted by MTV found that most millennials believe the workplace should be social and enjoyable, and they want flexible hours and less governance over the projects to which they are assigned. About half say they would rather have no job than a job they hate, and nearly two-thirds believe they should be mentoring older coworkers when it comes to tech and getting things done.

Employers often take these attitudes to mean that millennials are lazy, cocky, unwilling to pay their dues and feel they are exempt from the rules. But Finkelstein, who has authored a book on how to tackle the "co-generational workplace," challenges those assumptions, believing employers should instead view them as hungry and more moldable than older and more seasoned IT professionals.

What do you think?

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