The New Workforce: Generation Next (Generation Y) in your Organization

3. Organization Scenarios involving Generation Next

Technology and Generation Next

While it may be early in the Nexter's careers to determine the full impact they are having in their place of employment, the presence of Generation Next is already causing changes within organizations. Observations can be made to how members of different generations in the labor force react to the introduction of new technology. As an IT professional and member of Generation X, the author has observed that when new technology is introduced into the work environment:

• Veterans tended to retire because they didn't want to make changes in their work habits.
  
• The Boomers usually do not expect the new technology to work and often hold management responsible to fixing any problems related to the change.
• Members of Generation X often expect the technology to work, but not without problems. Often the Xers will hold themselves responsible in improving the technology.
• Nexters with their optimism and trust in establishment expect the technology will never fail.
  

If there is a single downfall Nexters have with technology, from personal observation, it is their failure to ask "what would I do if the technology doesn't work" and are unsure how best to work around failed technology. Coming from an information technology background, it has been observed that Nexters are more likely than any other cohort to underestimate the labor and skills needed to provide the reliable computers and communication networks that they use everyday.

As mentioned in the strategy + business report, the "digital natives" have sent and received more than 200,000 e-mails and instant messages by the time they reach college. Nexters have certain expectations as well as demands that the technology they need will be available to them:

Have you ever noticed that digital natives, unlike digital immigrants, don't talk about "information overload"? Rather, they crave more information.

The youngest workers don't need to adapt to fit into the agile, flat, team-based organizations older executives are striving to design. They just do it: They communicate, share, buy, sell, exchange, create, meet, collect, coordinate, play games, learn, evolve, search, analyze, report, program, socialize, explore, and even transgress using new digital methods and a new vocabulary most older managers don't even understand (Ignoring 'Generation Techs' at your own pearl, 2004).

Communication and Generation Next

A key word that reflects the type of communication Nexters are bringing with them to many organizations is collaboration. While the role of technology skills within organizations may be well understood, the tech-based socialization skills that Nexters are now bringing into the work environment may not be fully recognized. For example, the author's organization is given emergency management responsibilities with the mission to protect the life and property of the general public. Fifteen years ago, severe weather warning operations were shaped around hierarchy positions. The employee that held the most senior position during a civil emergency was always the primary decision maker. Eventually with the influence of Generation X, the primary decision maker was not the employee with the highest position, but the employee that possessed the most skills to properly get the job done. In fact this skilled employee leading the warning operations wasn't even considered the primary decision maker; instead he or she was designated as the coordinator whose role was to assist other individual decision makers with their job.

In the past year, the author's field office has once again restructured their warning operations. The restructuring did not originate from either management or senior staff, but from the youngest office employees (bottom-up management). Warning operations now requires less involvement of a coordinator because employee works in collaboration with the decision making process. To accommodate the collaboration process, employee workstations were repositioned so employees could work physically closer together allowing for more interpersonal communication. Technology was also introduced to display images from individual workstations to larger screens so that other staff members are able to observe and provide input. Finally instant messaging internal to the agency was introduced which allowed for peers from surrounding field offices hundred of miles away to join in the collaboration and decision making process.

The New Workforce: Generation Next (Generation Y) in your Organization

1. Introduction
2. Working Generations Compared
3. Impact on the Workplace
4. Dealing with Nexters (plus References)

 

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