Perhaps it began with David Cameron's hug-a-hoodie speech. Maybe the marketing industry rang the warning bell. Or perhaps it's the battles with your teenage children that have made the penny drop. Whatever the source, we're waking up to the fact that society has spawned a generation of technology-literate young people who think and act very differently to previous generations. Known as "generation Y" or "the millennials", they are the workforce of the future.
The millenials are more than an elite within the younger generation; they're virtually all of it. They are the boardroom faces of 2025, and an understanding of their world is necessary to capitalise on their skills. Equally important, many of the traditional assumptions, structures and systems which underpin today's workplace simply won't work for the millennials. A new approach may be required.
Collaborators Of course, they're frequent internet users. Studies from organisations such as Pew Research and UK Children Go On-line, suggest that between 70 per cent and 87 per cent of teenagers use the internet regularly, and around half use it daily. They do so in new ways, with profound implications for the workplace of tomorrow. While some directors still associate the internet with inflated expectations, culminating in disappointment and the bursting dot-com bubble, the millennials are already propelling "Web 2.0"-the participatory Web or Democratic Web as it is being called. These terms describe the move away from static Web pages to a more collaborative, information sharing, and community Web culture. Standard bearers for Web 2.0 include the photo sharing website Flickr, the blog search engine Technorati and social book-marking site del.icio.us. These sites represent an interactive approach to the internet and are dominated by millennial users.
Content creators Allied to this, the millennials are content creators. The exponential growth of youth sites such as MySpace, Piczo, SecondLife and even Wikipedia, point to a culture of input and influence. They expect to contribute and be heard. Djanogly City Academy in Nottingham is the UK's first ICT specialist academy. Assistant principal Sanjesh Sharma agrees: "Youngsters coming into the school are very confident users of content creation sites. "We found that 60 per cent of our 11-year-olds use Piczo, and I've watched them graduate to the social networking sites such as MySpace, as their social sides develop," he says.
The significance of Web 2.0 is that millennials expect to influence their technological world. They are a generation weaned on interactive media and a product of the digital world. This internet activity extends beyond the home. The Pew Internet and American Life Project survey found that 78 per cent of online teens in the US connect at school, 54 per cent at the library, and only restricted access to laptops holds them back from connecting in WiFi enabled coffee-shops and restaurants.
Social networkers With much of the repetitive work now done by computers, or outsourced to developing economies, knowledge work has come to the fore. Knowledge workers may be computer technicians, software designers, lab analysts, or a thousand other disciplines. Their work isn't based on processes, instruction from above or boss/worker relationships. Instead they spend their time applying knowledge, sharing work practices, collaborating and showing their own initiative.
Knowledge or access to it is assumed. Today's workforce is expected to fit this model, with mixed results. The good news is that our millennials are ideally suited to this new knowledge economy. Millennials tend to be skilled at multi-tasking and making complex, immediate connections, rather than single-issue concentration. Sharma is optimistic about this: "I see nothing less than a new breed of human being. They're surfing a wave of information and connections, and their skill is in absorbing only the most relevant snippets."
Some worry that the move to constant digital communications is at the expense of "real" social connection. Tamar Kasriel, head of knowledge venturing for the think-tank Henley Centre Headlight Vision, acknowledges the need for balance. "The online relationship may sometimes be the whole relationship between young people, but personal connections will remain of primary importance, and nothing in their behaviour suggests that the millennials will lose those crucial skills."
Tech experts Today's youth have mastered something that their seniors almost certainly have not-smart use of technology. Millennials seem to track a middle way between early-adopter enthusiasm and late-adopter reluctance, selecting technologies that are personally useful. "Our pupils are incredibly discriminate in their use of both hardware and software. They have a goal in mind, they select the tool, open it, use it and close it in an instant," says Sharma.
They expect technology to take the strain. Repetitive, linear tasks are not for them. Instead they will expect to focus on applying what they know in the knowledge environment.
Already, sales people sell, while software shuffles the database. Researchers are powered by search engines. Scientists harness the power of the PC for their calculations. This is the essence of the emerging knowledge economy.
Informal Formal communication methods such as the company memo are likely to be replaced by more immediate, conversational methods. But this can take some managing: when the Djanogly City Academy pupils moved to digital communications, the results initially jarred. "When we moved to email communication, many of our teachers struggled," Sharma admits. "The immediacy and informality of emailing and instant-messaging a teacher was undermining the pupil/teacher relationship. Teachers had to push back and re-establish some rules."
The next generation of workers has been immersed in informal, instant communications. Blogs, instant-messaging, text messages and the other tools of the digital world promote abbreviated, simplified language. This is the world that the millennials find comfortable, and this type of message will be most effective.
In the millennials' world of group contribution, traditional notions of hierarchy and boss/employee relationship simply won't wash. This is a generation that won't "know its place" and, instead, will expect to contribute and to influence. If they don't know everything, they have the tools to know everything. Rather than fighting it, senior management will need to find ways to collaborate and tap this sense of freedom and creativity.
Farsighted organisations such as Disney and McKinsey are already adopting internal "wikis"-guides that anyone can edit at any time-in order to capture the combined knowledge and inspiration of their knowledge workers.
Nomadic A constantly connected worker can be a nomadic worker. Our technology toys, mastered by the millennial, and information-based working, all allow working on the go, as well as home working and flexible hours. Try telling millennial workers, who know they can be equally effective working out of the office or at a time of their choosing, that you expect them to spend two hours crawling around the M25 in order to be at the office for 9am. The CV will be out before you can say "work/life balance".
Worker silos with row after row of identical desks with photos and fluffy toys must be replaced by collaborative spaces, open desk policies, formal and informal zones. Space and technology must be allocated according to function, not status.
The CEO will no longer be cloistered away in a corner office, but among the team. In short, the employer needs to provide an environment suited to the new worker in the knowledge economy. If the millennials' argument hasn't won you over, try calculating the property savings from such an approach.
Henley Centre Headlight Vision's Kasriel also points out the differing career expectations of today's young people. "We are seeing the rise of portfolio careers," he says. "The younger generation may choose to exploit their skills in various organisations, making it vital that firms are able to capture the knowledge while they have access to the employee."
Future leaders Today's directors can expect great things from the cream of the millennial crop. A highly adept multi-tasker, in masterful control of technology and knowledge tools, will be a highly desirable employee. Directors looking for leadership qualities will find rich pickings from a group that doesn't know its place, that expects to contribute, and which is skilled in the full field of communications techniques. More obviously, a worker who has only known flexible work in the new knowledge economy is ideally placed to manage other workers in that environment.
Equally, directors shouldn't fear the rise of a dictatorial rabble. Management structures may evolve, but they will remain in some form, and effective managers will develop an empowered rather than insubordinate team. Skills and aptitudes in the workplace are evolving, driven by technology and how workers use it, but there is still a job of management to be done. Those that understand the skills the millennial brings to the workplace, and adjust to play to their strengths, will reap the rewards in the emerging knowledge economy.
Richard Leyland is head of knowledge and publications for UNWIRED Ventures, the knowledge brand of Cordless Group.
