With the boom of tech-savvy employees in the workforce, companies are in search of unique engagement tools to keep the Gen X and Gen Y employees interested.  In Dana LaSalvia’s article called “Building an Employee-Enriched Culture with Social Media” she wrote that “organizations should think about integrating companywide marketing messages and upgrading their employee’s recognition programs to be more virtual.” To do this, implement an intranet! An intranet will improve employee culture and collaboration and act as a central portal for important company information.  When you position your company online, you are catering to a large group of Gen X and Gen Y employees.

An intranet is a virtual solution to inform and connect with your tech savvy employees. To do so, utilize Dana’s Electronic Tool suggestions on your intranet:

Blogs provide a platform for a constant flow of communication. It is a low-cost, easy-to-use method to implement. Keep content rich and employee-centered.

RSS Feeds (a.k.a. Real Simple Syndication) provide a stream of information for employees and can act as an update alert for recognition program news.

Widgets are small applications that can be installed and executed by an end user. Create a recognition wizard or a tip-of-the-day widget to supplement any program type.

Podcasts (or non-streamed webcast) are a series of digital media files that can be downloaded through Web syndication for training modules,   off-site seminars and integrated communications.

The New Workforce: Generation Next (Generation Y) in your Organization

4. Recommendations

Organizations are beginning to take note that a new generational cohort is entering the workforce. However, even articles and publications that discuss differences in contemporary work cohorts often fail to make a distinction between Generation X and Generation Next (see Kogan, 2001 for example). As the number of Nexters continue to grow and make their presence known, organizations are likely to realize the generational changes taking place. The earlier cited strategy + business article noted that "if consulted these young employees (Nexters) can be an enormous force for positive change and success in their companies. If ignored, they will doubtless spend their brain cycles on the job plotting how to make their own work lives, not their companies better". Those businesses that respond positively to the traits of the new generation will likely succeed. Those who do not positively respond to the Nexters, but instead continue with their pre-Nexter culture may face failure.

Zemke (2000, pp. 146 - 147) offers a number of suggestions with how best to manage Generation Next. Among some of those suggestions are:

1. Budget plenty of time for orienting. Learn about each new employee's personal goals and develop a strategy for interleaving those goals with job performance.
2. In areas where you have lots of members of Generation Next, consider expanding the size of your teams, and appoint a strong team leader.
3. Be sensitive to the potential for conflict when Xers and Nexters work side by side. The gap between those two generations may end up making the one between the Boomers and the Xers look tame.
4. Grow your training department, Nexters want to continue their education and develop their work skills.

5. Conclusion

The New Workforce: Generation Next (Generation Y) in your Organization

3. Organization Scenarios involving Generation Next

Technology and Generation Next

While it may be early in the Nexter's careers to determine the full impact they are having in their place of employment, the presence of Generation Next is already causing changes within organizations. Observations can be made to how members of different generations in the labor force react to the introduction of new technology. As an IT professional and member of Generation X, the author has observed that when new technology is introduced into the work environment:

• Veterans tended to retire because they didn't want to make changes in their work habits.
• The Boomers usually do not expect the new technology to work and often hold management responsible to fixing any problems related to the change.
• Members of Generation X often expect the technology to work, but not without problems. Often the Xers will hold themselves responsible in improving the technology.
• Nexters with their optimism and trust in establishment expect the technology will never fail.

If there is a single downfall Nexters have with technology, from personal observation, it is their failure to ask "what would I do if the technology doesn't work" and are unsure how best to work around failed technology. Coming from an information technology background, it has been observed that Nexters are more likely than any other cohort to underestimate the labor and skills needed to provide the reliable computers and communication networks that they use everyday.

As mentioned in the strategy + business report, the "digital natives" have sent and received more than 200,000 e-mails and instant messages by the time they reach college. Nexters have certain expectations as well as demands that the technology they need will be available to them:

The New Workforce: Generation Next (Generation Y) in your Organization

2. Generation Next and Contemporary Work Cohorts

Generation Next defined.

In Generations at Work: Managing the Clash of Veterans, Boomers, Xers, and Nexters in you Workplace, Zemke (2001, p. 19) observed four generational groups currently in the workforce. The identified generational groups (and the year of their births) are the Veterans (1922-1943), the Baby Boomers (1943-1960), Generation Xers (1960-1980), and the Generation Nexters (1980-2000). Researchers may disagree with the time periods for when each generation begins or ends, but are in general agreement that the each cohort are represented by differences in dominant work values and historical background.

Typical for every generation, the work expectations and the influences a generation has to an organization's culture is often a byproduct of their generation's unique upbringing and life experiences. The Nexters "grew up during prosperous times but find themselves entering a post-boom economy" (Robbins, 2005, p. 20). Nexters are considered to be one of the most coddled, well informed, open-minded to diversity, and technically enriched generation America has ever produced (Zemke et al., 2001, pp. 127-134). Dominant core values of Generation Next have been observed to by various authors as including confidence, achievement, optimism, civic duty, sociability and diversity.

Nexters, given their size in numbers, are expected to have a significant influence on U.S. culture. The cultural influence will be greater than the Xers and possibly even the Boomers.

The New Workforce: Generation Next (Generation Y) in your Organization

1. Introduction

Fifteen years ago a new employee with the federal government was in the office break room and found an interesting note on the union reading board. The note was in response to an intern questioning the union's emphasis of supporting management-union agreements favoring promotions based more on an employee's time in service and less on the employee's competency. In the note, the union representative rebuked the intern's comments and stated that "younger employees need to wait their turn and pay their dues because that's the way the world works".

The young employee's initial response was that neither management nor the union was likely to look for his best interest as well as he could do for himself. The rules he would follow and the pace he would advance his career would be of his own choosing. The employee's attitude of taking charge of your own career was pretty much typical of the generation entering the workforce in the late 1980s and 1990s; now identified as Generation X (Zemke, Raines, & Filipczak, 2000, p. 104). Fast-forward back to the present and the same not-so-young employee that was in the break room fifteen years earlier is finding himself no longer the "new employee".