Gen Y: What They Expect When They Work

Generation Y (Gen Y) consists of people born in the last two decades of the 20th century, who are now in their early-to-mid twenties and ready for employment. A huge generation gap is created between employers and these prospective employees since the latter have grown up with technology and electronic gadgets all around them. Gen Y expects their professional life to seamlessly merge into their personal life, such that they can carry out any tasks irrespective of where they are. A study on this topic was undertaken by Vodafone Global Enterprise, using a batch of students from CASS Business School. Their findings are listed below:

Gen Y Mobile Collaboration

80% of today’s students have Facebook accounts that they actively use for collaborative studying. Gen Y have access to a wide variety of communication media; 75 percent of them use web conferencing and instant messaging, 57 percent use corporate social networks, 46 percent are active on online chat and 41 percent need a wi-fi connection to study. With such a high degree of online collaboration, it is no wonder that 75 percent of these students predict the increasing importance of virtual relationships, with gesture-based interaction providing an enhanced user experience.

Gen Y Employee Expectations

As an effect of I.T. consumerism, almost three-fourths of the student population interviewed wants to carry their own mobile or tablet device to the workplace and expects the company to have secure supporting I.T. infrastructure in place. Almost half of them expect to be able to download various apps designed by their company.

That is not to say landline phones are on their way out. Not yet, anyway. 80 percent of the Gen-Y employees still want a fixed line for communication with clients and co-workers. In terms of usage frequency, 30 percent expect to make calls via the landline phone at least once a day.

Gen Y Workplace of the Future

When asked what they want most from their workplace in the near future, motivation and flexibility were the most common answers. Three-fourths of Gen Y students mentioned a stimulating work environment to boost employee efficiency and productivity, while three-fourths of them stated the desire to work from several locations based on assigned tasks.

Based on these Gen Y findings, companies have to alter the working lifestyle and work-life balance of their employees, in order to successfully tap into the tremendous potential of today’s young talented minds.