Interesting piece by author Don Tapscott on what digital natives expect from work and the workplace. Here are his key points:
- Children of the 'babyboomers' are now in their 20s and entering work - challenging their employers with demands about how work should work
- Digital natives have grown up with technology and have skills that enable them to collaborate online
- They have different attitudes to work: they want to choose when and where to work and value family over money
- They are loyal to their careers, not one company
- They expect to be able to network online in and out of work (employers that ban social networking are turning off digital natives)
- They want challenging work but not neccessarily organisational responsibility - hierarchies are a thing of the past.
So, flatter structures, more collaboration and workers with a different approach and expectation of work. Learning and development for these people will look very different to the types of training delivered to the digital immigrant workforce.
And then there are the challenges of learning and development for mixed teams of 20 somethings and 30/40/50 somethings.
More links: Genertaion Y research from Personnel Today