Digital natives as employees

One of the requirements for good forecasting is to be fairly old.  In fact the older the better when it comes to generational pronouncements.  Young people tend to have pretty similar characteristics over the generations – rebellious, self-absorbed, dismissive of the past - being standard issue.  So an observation that the generation labelled ‘digital natives’ may really be different has to be examined with care.  But it makes sense that a generation digitally wired from birth would have behavioural features if not genuinely different from previous generations, at least sufficiently exaggerated to merit attention. (After all, in the ‘Cry Wolf’ fable, the wolf did eventually come.)

  A recent article in European Business Review (http://www.europeanbusinessreview.com/?s=Managing+digital+natives) describing how this generation is taking to the workplace develops these differences fairly convincingly.   And although their data seems mainly from the US, the UK and Scandinavian countries are mentioned as well. The piece tends to focus on the unattractive features of this generation as employees, but there are a number of good features that need to be recognized. But the bad news first.

Having grown up in fairly fat and indeed tolerant time (or lazy parenting that resists setting boundaries while helping them achieve maximum results with minimum effort), this generation can have an exaggerated sense of entitlement.  They are also familiar with the language of ‘brand me’ so are dedicated to furthering their own careers without consideration for others.

The norm is abundant information and with information at their fingertips, they expect instant access and instant results.  As one observer says: It’s as though their cognitive structures are wired in parallel, not sequential.  Information literally goes from heads to webs: memorizing is the past, Googling is the future and multi-tasking is the operating standard. Which means when it comes to the workplace is that they are easily bored; attention spans are short and many may appear to suffer from ADHD if not constantly engaged. And along with this, the interruptions caused by their many digital devices pose constraints on their ability to concentrate on the job at hand.

The good side of this is that they expect to have fun at work so bring a different playful energy to the job.  Furthermore, (and this strikes me as very important) their mental flexibility means they make connections with seemingly disparate ideas/functions more readily. So they have lots of ideas and opinions and are used to sharing them and creating new ideas

I grew up and   entered the workplace in a pre-digital era and still was bored senseless until I got a certain amount of responsibility. So this makes sense to me.  Companies who pay little attention to new recruits, give them menial time filling jobs and train them in tedious, lecture style sessions deserve to lose the best ones at the first hurdle.