Tuesday 3 July 2007

Generation Y

For those of us born between 1980-2000:
97% own a computer (Yes)
94% own a cell phone (No)
56% own an mp3 player (No)
76% use Instant Messaging (Yes)
15% of IM users are logged on 24 hours a day/7 days a week (Yes)
34% use websites as their primary source of news (Yes)
28% own a blog and 44% read blogs (Yes,Yes)
49% download music using peer-to-peer file sharing (No)
75% of students have a Facebook account (Yes)

Us Generation Y workers have a reputation for experiencing boredom and frustration with slow-paced environments, traditional hierarchies and even slightly outdated technologies. The biggest difference between us and generations who came before, is that we have spent our entire lives surrounded by technology. We grew up in the lap of luxury, in one of the best economic times in the last 100 years, and everyone started living really luxuriously: two-plus cars, travel, cottages, dinners out, etc. We are also pretty opinionated about the jobs we want and the money we intend to make, and this causes us to miss the step where we understand that we need to work our way up from the bottom. Who wants to do that? Members of our Generation Y work force will switch jobs over the course of our careers more than any generation before, holding as many as 20 jobs before we retire. We demand more flexibility, unseen in previous generations. We will get the job done on time, but resent being reminded to. We don't feel that we should have to conform to office processes. But, us in Generation Y work well on deadlines. Though we feel that as long as we have completed our work, our process isn't what matters. Because of this focus on output and not method, we want different things out of our schedules. As long as we are getting our work done on time, we don't see why we shouldn't have the maximum flexibility: flex time, flex hours and working from home. I agree, why shouldn't we have maximum flexibility?

2 comments:

  1. Hey, Chris, these are interesting stats. Where'd you get them from?

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  2. Yep, I totally agree with that. Who cares how it is done as long as it gets done?

    ReplyDelete