Posts Tagged “Gen X”

Differences in the way Millennials and other generations communicate and receive information are not the only differences companies will need to address in a very short time.

In a podcast, Barbara Keats, associate professor of management at the W.P. Carey School of Business, discusses the Millennials’ belief systems.

Keats said that, given their propensity for “frequent validation, quick rewards and permission to shape the rules to fit their lives,” academics and employers “are wondering if millennials have determined that cutting corners and cheating is an acceptable way of getting ahead” and “taking it to a new level.”

Given some recent examples of fraud and plagiarism in the U.S. – the 45 students dismissed from the University of Virginia for cheating in 2002 and allegations that three sections of Kaavya Viswanathan’s novel bore similiarites to one written by Sophie Kinsella – should give companies pause.

It also should cause companies to strengthen their ethics policies. And if they don’t yet have one, companies must begin establishing ethics policies or rules of behavior. Many professional organizations have codes of ethics in place to ensure their members abide by a level of integrity that protects the association and the profession. In the same way, companies can protect themselves and their other employees from the actions of one bad apple.

The 80 million Baby Boomers are approaching one of life’s major milestones – retirement. And many companies are preparing for the brain drain that will cause. Ready to step in are the 46 million or so Gen Xers.

But there’s a new generation on the horizon – affectionately called the Millennials. Born between 1982 and 2000, they are 76 million strong and now are beginning to graduate from college and flood the job market.

Millennials have been described as tech savvy. In a 2007 book by Reynol Junco and Jeanna Mastrodicasa, a survey 7,705 U.S. college students showed:

97% own a computer

76% use instant messaging

15% of IM users are logged on 24 hours a day/7 days a week

34% use Web sites as their primary source of news

28% own a blog and 44% read blogs

49% download music using peer-to-peer file sharing

75% have a Facebook account

Given the generational differences between the Baby Boomers and the Millennials – and don’t forget the Gen Xers – employers will be challenged to integrate these generations into their workplaces as the old and new worlds collide. So what will that mean for communicating to them?

Likely it will mean increasing message multiplicity by combining more traditional methods – company newsletters, e-mails, and memos – with more modern methods, like blogs, RSS feeds and text messages to their cell phones. It also might mean developing ways to personalize each and every message to a Millennial recipient.

This would mean implementing technologies to gather data on their own employees’ habits and usage to create individual user profiles. With their propensity for sharing details about themselves through things like Facebook, MySpace, and receiving banking updates on their cell phones, one might assume this to be an acceptable endeavor on the part of companies. However, these are waters that haven’t yet been thoroughly tested.