Millennials are the big buzz word of 2014. Just watch this bloomberg video if you don’t believe me. (youtube link)
First lets define Millennials (wikipedia).
- They were born 1980-2000 (ish).
- This means that they grew up with the internet (I can remember a time before it and dial up connections !)
- They grew up with Wifi, youtube, facebook and myspace and with mobile technology.
- During their formative years the number of television channels boomed to over 250,
- They find information coming to them from every direction,
- They don’t visit libraries or read magazines or newspapers as much as previous generations but instead get their information from wikipedia, their social channels and information aggregators.
So what is this all about and why should we care.
1) Well in 10yrs millennials will account for 50% of the workforce according to wikipedia, Forbes, etc.
2) Millennials have grown up with technologies such as social networks, smartphones and the flexibility to use whatever device or app they want.
3) Millennials are known for living in the moment and having huge dreams. More millennials than any previous generation are starting up their own companies.
4) It is expected that Millennials will move continually and on average work for around 10-15 companies in their working lifetime. Lets assume a 30yr career, 25-55yrs old, thats a move every 2-3yrs. Blind loyalty to a company is gone and their driver is interesting, rewarding work.
So for a company to attract and retain millennials the current workplace and tools we impose on them won’t work. Companies need millennials as they are the next gen workforce and of course they will become the buyers of products when the current generation retires/moves on. Its essential to employee this generation, get them money to pump into the economy.
So what needs to change. Well lots, 81% of millennials feel they should be able to set their own hours, and around 80% believe they should be able to wear jeans or whatever they want. Thats a change from the traditional 9-5 worktime and the suit and tie brigade. They also feel the way they progress and the way they are rewarded should be based on value and delivery and not time spent in the office, etc.
So lots of cultural stuff needs to change. I am going to focus though on the technology side.
Millennials change apps on their smartphones very frequently. They have no love of a particular app for long and its more about how the app gets the job done.
They also don’t care much for corporate rules restricting applications they can use and how they can use those applications with corporate data.
Social is key to them. Getting a job completed is about working with others and not the traditional team where a project manager or general manager will construct the team. Millennials will construct their own teams to get the work done and then disband and move on to the next task.
So what do we have so far.
- Flexibility – use whatever app, whenever, wherever,
- Abstraction and Integration – they expect the data they need to work on to be available anywhere and to be accessible from any of the apps they use,
- They expect strong social tools to be available and not constrained by corporate redtape,