Fascinating speech was given on a conference I attended this week. Apparently studies have shown that the generation after "Generation X", (born from around 1965 to 1982) are "The millennial generation", meaning kids who were 16 or under in 2000. They're just now entering the workplace, and organisations like mine have to learn how to cope with them.
Studies apparently show that because they're the first generation to genuinely grow up with multi-media technology surrounding them, they, er, really know how to use it, in ways that even old farts like me can't comprehend. They don't use e-mail, they text. They don't like working alone, they actively group-network solutions to problems, both in person and, crucially, virtually, on-line in messageboards. In a classroom setting, our children, having been set a problem, don't go back to their desks and solve it, as we would have done, but instinctively wander off to form groups and brainstorm solutions. At social events, they are observed not dancing in pairs, but in groups. They are so comfortable with on-line researching that they actively mistrust traditional guidance manuals, preferring - actively preferring - to be given the freedom to search for their own solutions to problems through a variety of media before deciding on a way forward. They - and this is where it gets really interesting - are growing up with absolutely no concept at all of racial or class divide, or of geographical boundaries, and are perfectly comfortable with the concept of forming "on-line" virtual networks of colleagues or friends that contain no prejudice towards where people live, or what time it is. They do not see the value in being constrained by in-task time limits, preferring an environment where finding the solution is the key, and want to work when they feel it suits them towards any end-goal deadline.
All real challenges to the traditional employer, bringing kids in to sit them down, hand them a manual and say "you're doing that from 9 to 5, now get on with it". We're unlikely to be able to attract, motivate or indeed get these kids to work for us unless we adapt to their way of being, not just working.
Personally I feel, myself, to be more akin to the Millenial generation that my own (probably why I'm on this board so often) but it's still fascinating stuff. Our kids reallly are, it would seem, the product of what we always wanted to become.
Studies apparently show that because they're the first generation to genuinely grow up with multi-media technology surrounding them, they, er, really know how to use it, in ways that even old farts like me can't comprehend. They don't use e-mail, they text. They don't like working alone, they actively group-network solutions to problems, both in person and, crucially, virtually, on-line in messageboards. In a classroom setting, our children, having been set a problem, don't go back to their desks and solve it, as we would have done, but instinctively wander off to form groups and brainstorm solutions. At social events, they are observed not dancing in pairs, but in groups. They are so comfortable with on-line researching that they actively mistrust traditional guidance manuals, preferring - actively preferring - to be given the freedom to search for their own solutions to problems through a variety of media before deciding on a way forward. They - and this is where it gets really interesting - are growing up with absolutely no concept at all of racial or class divide, or of geographical boundaries, and are perfectly comfortable with the concept of forming "on-line" virtual networks of colleagues or friends that contain no prejudice towards where people live, or what time it is. They do not see the value in being constrained by in-task time limits, preferring an environment where finding the solution is the key, and want to work when they feel it suits them towards any end-goal deadline.
All real challenges to the traditional employer, bringing kids in to sit them down, hand them a manual and say "you're doing that from 9 to 5, now get on with it". We're unlikely to be able to attract, motivate or indeed get these kids to work for us unless we adapt to their way of being, not just working.
Personally I feel, myself, to be more akin to the Millenial generation that my own (probably why I'm on this board so often) but it's still fascinating stuff. Our kids reallly are, it would seem, the product of what we always wanted to become.
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