Clash in the Work Place
Forbes has an article on the newest clash of generational working styles. More traditional bosses and managers still prefer a lot of face-to-face contact for creating and solidifying deals, and are mystified by the “Gen Y” tendency to sit in a cubicle and communicate by SMS.
An excerpt:
“The recent crop of grads, those born in the early 1980s, aka Generation Y, has marched boldly into the workforce over the past four years. They’ve brought with them a set of technological tools that makes fax machines, voice mail and spreadsheet software look positively quaint. They’ve grown up with scanning, text messaging and Googling, and they’re not about to stop once they’ve hit the working world.
Nor should they. Those skills are big assets when it comes to multi-tasking and productivity. But they’re also a nightmare for many of their bosses, those over 35 who understand that while technology is a useful tool, it doesn’t replace in-person interaction as a primary means of doing business. Today’s bosses can’t understand why their young recruits, for all their brains and technical acumen, hardly ever come over and actually talk to them.
“I hear from clients that [young professionals’] first instinct is to IM rather than walk over to their boss’ office. That can be OK for a quick question, but when you’re planning something, you need to talk face-to-face,” says Steven Rothberg, founder of Collegerecruiter.com, who places recent graduates into corporate jobs.
The tech disparity between 20-somethings and 40-somethings is far greater today than it was 20 years ago, when today’s 40-somethings were the young turks. Over 17 percent of today’s workforce is between the ages of 25 and 34, while another 28 percent is made up of employees 55 and over, Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers show.
That breakdown is not much different than in many past years. But what is different is the speed of technological progress since the mid-1990s, from the Internet and e-mail to cell phones and instant messaging. A recent survey by outplacement firm Lee Hecht Harrison shows that 60 percent of U.S. corporations acknowledge having workplace tensions among generations.”
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Hmm. this is truly food for thought. In the academic world I see two places in which the ‘convergence of the twain’, to mis-appropriate Hardy, occurs: differing levels of formality, and the need to leave a paper trail.
There are great and uncomfortable gaps between students and professors in terms of professional correspondence and address – not because these students are rude in general or have little respect for their instructors, but because having been brought up in the ‘your parent is your friend’ generation AND having grown up with technologies that encourage short, informal communication, they have no sense of how emails that begin with “Hi!” or no salutation appear to the recipient. At the same time, their comfort with current technologies makes them impatient with often cumbersome university online course bulletin boards and other programs.
Second, the idea of the paper trail as a necessity for big projects and background documentation is changing, but slowly. Universities 3+ years ago were extremely reluctant to send official announcements via email, because it left no concrete record. Now, many send intra-university memos and announcements exclusively by email – a great cost savings, but also a tremendous change in institutional notions of ‘acceptable’ documentation. however, for students and under 25s generally, the rationale for creating paper trails – establishing clear expectations of each team member’s responsibilities, determining the scope and timeline of a particular project, etc. – is not always apparent. not to sound totally like an academic, but in my opinion what will bridge this particular gap is a combination of a creative rethinking of the paper trail concept as well as an education program for new trainees in the _why_ of documentation.
back to work for me –
love petite a.
Little Diamond – “not to sound totally like an academic” . . . (not just rolling on the floor, but gasping! gasping! with laughter! ultimate WONK statement! oh stop! stop! I can’t breathe!)