He is as young as the internet, which turns 25 this year. He stays one step ahead of the next smartphone in the market. Bringing his larger-than-palm-sized phone and tablet to work, he demands to be connected and chooses to stay out of touch. He is the go-to person for formulating messages in 140 characters and, without a trace of irony, describes himself as “SEO stalwart” on Twitter.
My millennial colleague was the first to sync his personal smartphone with the calendar on our office mail. A couple of months later he was looking for quick fixes to disable that. His smartphone home screen is the first thing his eyes encounter in the morning and “waking up to reminders of tasks waiting at work, often days in advance, is no fun”, he moans.
BYOD (bring your own device) is so yesterday, what next?
Work as a thing, not place
You cannot pin down a millennial by introducing newfangled devices that tie him to the workplace. Flexibility is key. Being asked to look into the iris scanner to record attendance is as dated as signing a register. He will show you tweets and Facebook posts as an alibi that he was at a conference, working, of course.
According to NextGen: A Global Generational Study released last year by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the University of Southern California and the London Business School, if they were able to make their current job more flexible, 64 per cent of millennials would like to occasionally work from home, and 66 per cent would like to shift their work hours. “Millennials do not believe that productivity should be measured by the number of hours worked at the office, but by the output of the work performed. They view work as a ‘thing’ and not a ‘place’,” the report says.
While the need for security overwhelmed many technology administrators, things are changing now. In a white paper, Chris McNulty, SharePoint Strategic Product Manager, Dell, talks about governance features. “[AttachThis] allows the enterprise to identify preferred channels for posting content while understanding that ultimately, it’s up to each individual to take responsibility for where they put
their content.”
What would Google do?
You can occasionally substitute it with WWAD (what will Apple do). Millennials learn by example and are passionate about practising what they preach — not very different from any generation of youth in their desire to be ideologically true.
Never has so much been written about workplace practices of brands as it is now. At Google, we are told, workplace synchronicity rules. Work-life balance is important. Meetings at the company make use of its Hangouts app to include employees who are unable to attend, or those who work in other locations.
Meeting attendees use the camera on their phone or computer and participate. However, a teleconference does not mean that you wear a suit and make yourself available in the conference room at the appointed hour. Instead, you could be at home after a long commute. The studied casualness of terminology reinforces this — it’s called a hangout rather than a conference.
Office technology managers need to recognise this and ensure that their company’s tech support works to facilitate such a work culture. Making use of the shared document technology, such as Google docs, to implement more transparent human resource strategies, or workplace policies is one example.
According to the 2013 Millennial Workplace Trends Survey by Ideapaint, almost a third of respondents, 32 per cent, did not believe their company was innovative. Almost 45 per cent said that “the lack or misuse of technology solutions is to blame”.
Wear your work
Wearable technology is already a trend in the consumer world and is quickly making its way to the workplace as well. There are smart devices such as Google Glass, watches such as the InPulse Smart Notification Watch that provides information on the go, health monitors such as FitBit, FuelBand and Jawbone that collect and analyse physical data, and tethered devices that work as accessories to the smartphone, such as a Bluetooth biometric sensor, which acts as a heart monitor.
Google has launched a Glass at Work pilot, asking businesses how they’re working with Glass, and the kinds of applications they’re developing. Google’s post on Google+ cites the ice hockey team Washington Capitals’ work with PX Labs, which created Glassware.
“The Washington Capitals partnered with APX Labs to create a fan experience where real-time stats, instant replay and different camera angles are all brought directly to Capitals fans via Glass. Schlumberger, the world’s largest oilfield services company, partnered with Wearable Intelligence and is using Glass to increase safety and efficiency for their employees in the field,” says the post.
In some ways, many of these are extensions of the idea of being traceable by GPS or mobile phone. Wearable technology is being seen in pilot or trial stages. In professions where employee fatigue can cause serious problems such as nursing or flying airplanes, such technology can enhance productivity. Wearable technology will allow some of these employees to wear bracelets that monitor their most critical vital signs, including for fatigue. A supervisor could have access to real-time summary or a dashboard. Implemented in retail, this would allow managers to position associates in areas experiencing high volume of traffic.
Phone meets laptop
Workers want to use many different technological tools to be more productive even though for many organisations email is still the primary method of communication. Effective communication is important and millennials demand to be engaged. At Google, for instance, in some cases
a Youtube video replaced scheduled newsletters.
This is also a direct result of more and more businesses becoming international. Many technology start-ups are focused on repurposing email inboxes, building real-time messaging for the workplace and facing the challenge of bringing together disparate cloud services into a more unified experience.
According to NextGen, “Companies should make it a priority to offer the best technology tools for collaboration, productivity, and flexibility.”
Be human
It is crucial to not be overwhelmed by technology. According to the 2013 Millennial Workplace Trends Survey study by Cornerstone, the average millennial employee is just as stressed out by technology as any Gen X, baby boomer or senior. The poll of more than 1,000 employees reports that millennials are more likely than any other generation to say they have suffered from work overload (58 per cent), information overload (41 per cent) and technology overload (38 per cent).
When asked to describe their ideal collaboration scenario, 90 per cent millennials said they preferred in-person meetings over conference calls. And 74 per cent said they preferred to collaborate in small groups to generate big ideas.
NextGen found that the older generation prefers to work alone while millennials prefer group settings and collaboration.
