Chapter 12: Millennials As New Salespeople: Moral Reasoning and Implications for Employee Well-Being

Anna, a member of the Millennial generation (born between 1980 and 1994), is discussing one of her first experiences as a salesperson and the real-time ethical decisions that she needed to make when faced with competing demands from her clients, her company, and her personal objectives. Millennials have different personal characteristics, goals, and professional aspirations from those of prior generations. Extant ethical theory and approaches to corporate ethics programs may not be effective or appropriate for this new generational cohort. By 2014, the approximately 80 million Millennials (CBS News, 2009) will constitute as much as 50 percent of the workforce (Ribitzky, 2011); and it is predicted that by 2025, three out of every four workers will be Millennials (Kiisel, 2012). As the largest generational cohort since Baby Boomers, Millennials stand to make a profound impact on the ethical climate and characteristics of firms. Integrating Millennials into the sales workforce poses challenges to firms attempting to create positive ethical climates and foster employees’ well-being.