NBR Commentary – Employee Computing – 7 Aug 08
We’ve done a lot of research on the young generation entering the workforce, and how their abilities, attitudes, and behaviors challenge the status quo in most corporations. Case in point is how they use technology.
Young employees like up-to-date, multi-purpose, stylish devices like the iPhone. They expect to connect with people, find information, and do their computing anytime and anyplace. They rely on instant messaging and Facebook and believe you can collaborate without benefit of meetings. They judge prospective employers by their computing practices. They use technology to bounce back and forth between work and play.
Now look at corporate computing. The company issues you the year-before-last’s technology configured to permit you to do what the company thinks you should be doing. Access to information is limited to those with a predetermined need to know. IM and Facebook are at best tolerated, more often banned. Collaboration has to be planned. Work and play don’t mix.
Let’s face it, the corporate computing experience is inferior to what people have at home, and many of its restrictions are obsolete and unproductive.
What’s a corporation to do? It cannot ignore or beat back the preferences of the next wave of employees. It also cannot ignore the fact that many young people are naïve about the basics of information management, intellectual property, and corporate exposure. Employers have little choice but to revamp their approaches to employee computing, embrace the technologies of collaboration, and simultaneously accommodate and educate their young employees.
I’m Robert Morison.
We’ve done a lot of research on the young generation entering the workforce, and how their abilities, attitudes, and behaviors challenge the status quo in most corporations. Case in point is how they use technology.
Young employees like up-to-date, multi-purpose, stylish devices like the iPhone. They expect to connect with people, find information, and do their computing anytime and anyplace. They rely on instant messaging and Facebook and believe you can collaborate without benefit of meetings. They judge prospective employers by their computing practices. They use technology to bounce back and forth between work and play.
Now look at corporate computing. The company issues you the year-before-last’s technology configured to permit you to do what the company thinks you should be doing. Access to information is limited to those with a predetermined need to know. IM and Facebook are at best tolerated, more often banned. Collaboration has to be planned. Work and play don’t mix.
Let’s face it, the corporate computing experience is inferior to what people have at home, and many of its restrictions are obsolete and unproductive.
What’s a corporation to do? It cannot ignore or beat back the preferences of the next wave of employees. It also cannot ignore the fact that many young people are naïve about the basics of information management, intellectual property, and corporate exposure. Employers have little choice but to revamp their approaches to employee computing, embrace the technologies of collaboration, and simultaneously accommodate and educate their young employees.
I’m Robert Morison.
