How Younger Hires are Drastically Changing Business and IT Paradigms – NWW IT Roadmap Panel Discussion

October 28th, 2009 by Valerie Barber

I attended a panel discussion at yesterday’s 2009 Network World IT Roadmap in DC about how Generation Y is changing businesses practices. Moderator Robin Gareiss started off by telling a few personal anecdotes about Gen Y: She was at a party with eight and nine year old kids and four of the eight had cell phones – two were Blackberries. Her 19 year old daughter completed college applications on her iPhone. A group of girls a sleepover were sitting in the same room not actually talking to each other but texting each other. They were laughing and having a good time.

The panelists then gave examples (both good and bad) of how quickly things have changed in one generation when it comes to how the next generation of workers uses technology.

Law firm: older workers use the librarian to help with research. If they use the Internet, they are on CNN, WSJ, and other news sites. Gen Y uses the Internet, Facebook (date, time stamps), MySpace and Wikipedia.

Consumerism is driving IT. Younger workers may have better, faster and more IT resources at home than they do at their job (a reversal from just a few years ago). They know where to get free resources and they are able to cobble together applications to do what they need. They are pushing IT – “if I can do it at home, I should be able to do it at work.”

Skills vs. Experience. Students are learning applications, programs and gaining skills in school (elementary through college), but they still need the experience and a “willing-to-learn-more” attitude to apply these skills to their jobs.

Collaboration vs. Competitiveness. Panelists agreed that younger workers are more comfortable working in teams rather than individually. They feel this is because they work in teams in school and because of the number of available collaboration tools. On the people skills side, they noted that tools don’t resolve conflicts between people that happen when you actually see and talk to them and that individuals and departments often have their own agendas that aren’t exposed in applications or collaborative tools.

Quick learners. Everyone agreed that Gen Y picks up skills very quickly – the learning curve is down from weeks to sometimes days. There is very little tolerance for delay (go to Wikipedia for answers – it may not be right, but it’s an easy answer!) However, they all agreed that being able to apply skills in context in a business setting and making judgment calls still takes time.

Work ethics issues. Older workers think of their jobs as eight hours in the office and not taking work home. Younger workers work at any hour around the clock, come in late and stay late.

Interpersonal skills are lacking. Gen Y texts vs. talks. They don’t write in complete sentences or spell out words. Everyone agreed that being able to talk to others is a key job skill that seems to be slipping away.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Add comment October 28th, 2009