The Net Kids Are Coming

Tapping the Power of "Generation Y"

David Smith

Whether you call them “Generation Y”, “Millennials”, or “Digital Natives”, the tech-savvy teens and twentysomethings entering our organisations are set to have a major impact on how we do business. And I believe CIOs can no longer remain in denial about the changes required to accommodate them.

Most analysts define Generation Y as those born between 1980 and 1999 – about 15 million people in the UK. Around half are already in the workforce, with the rest set to enter over the next 15 years. Having grown up with the internet, they expect to be able to use the same productivity and collaboration technologies at work that they use in their personal lives – social networking, web-based applications, mobile devices and so on. This generation also has very different cultural expectations of work to their predecessors. They tend to be more comfortable with the blurring of organisational and personal boundaries, more self-directed in terms of how they go about their jobs and build a career, in greater need of instant feedback and job satisfaction, and more inclined towards diverse collaboration, openness and flexibility.

David Smith is CIO of Fujitsu UK & Ireland

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