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Millennials: Even Less Likely to Follow the Rules follow this blog post

posted by on Nov. 21, 2008

It's time for yet another new demographic revolution.

While the oldest members of Generation Y turn 30, recruiters and consultants alike are starting to turn their attention toward the Millennials, the next generation to enter the work force. That means that the span between the oldest and youngest workers is five generations wide. 

 

According to a study of the co-hort released by Accenture this month, Millennials make their employment decisions based on how companies accommodate how they want to use their own mobile devices and other technology.  

"In addition, more than half (60 percent) of Millennials are either unaware of their companies’ information technology (IT) policies or are not inclined to follow them," says a press release about the study.

Whether the Millenials interviewed were in the 14 to 17 year-old group, the 18 to 22 year-old group, or the 23 to 27 year-old group, the survey found that the demand for high-tech devices to communicate was higher than for any other generational group.

Other highlights of the survey include::

  • Millennials want to decide what technology they use. 
  • They don't see a need to seek approval to use that technology for work. 
  • If the companies where they work have policies about tech usage, the Millennials don't know about them.
  • "Millennials expect employers to provide communication channels such as online chat, instant messaging, mobile text messaging and RSS feeds to communicate with their customers and clients," the study says.
  • The amount of time spent using regular email is falling among Millennials
  • They spend just 30 minutes a week on their blogs.

What's the take-away from this study?

“To lure them into the workplace, prospective employers must provide state-of-the-art technologies,” said Gary Curtis, managing director of Accenture Technology Consulting.  “And if their employers don’t support their preferred technologies, Millennials will acquire and use them anyway. In order to acquire and retain the best talent, organizations must understand the technologies that the new workforce expects and then find a way to support their employees without compromising enterprise security.”

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  • 1 point 11 months ago

    Your second comment is in itself an interesting example of your first comment: Baby boomers and Millennials are equally passionate about which things they think are important - it's just that they don't always agree what those things are.

    As we've discussed here before, Baby Boomers think it's unacceptable to wear flipflops to job interviews, while Millennials think that it shouldn't matter that much; Baby boomers think spelling and grammar are quite important, while Millennials are more concerned with posting a quick comment than whether their spelling is perfect; Millennials think community activism in the workplace is very important, while Baby Boomers tend to want to keep it out of the office.

    The list of differences go on.

    But here's the thing: neither group is unassailably right (or wrong) all of the time.

    You're right that poor spelling and grammar don't necessarily mean that much in a comment on a blog posting - but there are plenty of business situations in which spelling does count (using the word 'discreet' when you really mean 'discrete' could have serious consequences in a business document, for example).

    Wearing flipflops to the office may not be a big deal - until your biggest client, who happens to find them abhorrent, visits your office and decides the place is being run by a bunch of college kids who probably aren't handling his money very well.

    And charity in the workplace may not be important to Baby Boomers - until they watch their best and brightest young employees take jobs at more socially responsible companies.

  • 1 point 11 months ago

    btw...Don't nit-pick me to death about mispelling. This is a board and I'm in a hurry to get my ideas on it today. If you don't get what I'm saying, spelling ravage correctly is not my problem, generational bias is yours.

  • 1 point 11 months ago

    The boomer generation is notorious for changing the rules, asking why and not being satisfied until the answer they get makes sense to them. That was at least for a while. I guess as the boomers got older, the world made sense to them. They took over, and made up thier own set of rules.

    I believe the Y generation just took what was handed to them. Not much rebellion there.

    But the millennials do want some changes to be made, to accomodate thier reported tech saviness, thier concept of community and anger over the revaged earth that's being handed to them.

    In many ways the Millennials are much like the boomers. And therein lies the rub. They want to do things thier way, much as the bommers do.

    One group says if the rules don't make sense, raise hell until until you get them changed.

    The other says if the rules don't make sense ignore them. Focus on things that are more important.

    Both groups have a tendency to get things done thier way.

  • 1 point 11 months ago

    I hope the level of ignorance/awareness of policies is related to how much the company invests in training their employees.