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Gen Y Workers Reinventing IT for the Better
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Mar 20, 2008 11:20 AM
from the worse-or-better dept.
from the worse-or-better dept.
buzzardsbay writes "We all know the complaints about young employees. They depend too much on their parents' money, they need constant hand-holding, they have no job loyalty, they demand more than they're worth, they disrespect older employees, and they're naive about corporate culture. But despite this conventional wisdom, there's growing evidence that the different working styles of Gen Y workers might be causing fundamental — and beneficial — changes in the way enterprises run, especially when it comes to IT. For example, they may show better judgment when making tech purchases and are often better with green IT initiatives. This is a nice counterpoint to a previous story (and resulting incendiary comments) that dubbed young tech workers a risk to corporate networks."
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buzzardsbay writes "Baseline is reporting on an upcoming survey from Symantec and Applied Research-West that confirms many suspicions about the generation gap in the workplace, namely that younger workers will use your corporate network to run most any device, technology or social networking software they can get their hands on. Dubbed "Millenials," these workers born after 1980 are nearly twice as likely to use cell phones and PDAs at work, and half admit to installing unauthorized software on their employer's computers. On the upside, the Millenials are more security aware than their older co-workers."
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Job Loyalty? How about orker loyalty? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Job Loyalty? How about orker loyalty? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Job Loyalty? How about orker loyalty? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're making $45k, but have another offer for $47k for similar levels of effort/benefits/job satisfaction, then you're worth $47k and should demand to be paid that much or jump ship. Even if you're contributions generate $250k/year for the company, you're still only worth $47k because that's all that you can market yourself for. If you were in a very scarcely populated field and could generate $250k/year, you would be worth more and could demand more. But, if $45k is all that you can demand from your employer, it's because they believe that they can replace you for someone they can pay $45k. That's how they determine your worth - Just like any other resource.
A sad situation, but not all things in life are what we'd like them to be.
Parent
Re:Job Loyalty? How about orker loyalty? (Score:5, Interesting)
I hate ignorant comments like this. Do you realize the massive amount of work required to run a company? Do you understand the job security you have as an employee of a company? It's *my* job to make sure you continue to have a job. It's my job to work ridiculous hours and be on call for things you can't even imagine. I have to be multi-talented, multi-disciplined, multi-tasking, and multi-personality. I have to understand the nuances of industries that aren't even related to my field. I spend massive amounts of money and personal time making sure that YOU are able to produce for me without being sidetracked by unrelated issues.
So don't tell me that I don't deserve it.
PS: For all of those people about to come back with crap-ass comments about "I should pay you more to retain you.", let me get that out of the way. I pay what I can. In fact, I go without pay to make sure you get paid. Yes, perhaps I'm in the minority, but you know what? Those years that are better than others? I'll take my fair share. If I am directly responsible for procuring 100% of the business, and you are responsible for creating a product that retains that business, then I trump you anyday. This is what people don't understand: sales *is* hard. If it were easier, you'd get paid more.
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Re:Job Loyalty? How about orker loyalty? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit wage is a matter of population size and how much that populationt will bear, wage vs skill has been decoupled for a long time. Imagine being as skilled as you are in a small population, your wage wouldn't be shit, yes you ARE exploiting people give it up. I mean no offense what-so-ever but there are generally two strategies to get rich (with a bit of back and forth):
-take a lot from a few
-Take a little bit from everybody
It's how massive corporations are able to pay insane wages to their employee's, simply by having an economy of scale and being in a strategic position in the market where demand and profit is not grossly out of line.
If I'm a CEO there's fundamental limits on my time, there's no way anyone deserves $250 fucking million dollars, I don't care who you are. Once you're making over a few hundred grand a year you're treading on very thing ice.
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Don't try to pretend that execs aren't overpaid. (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, you certainly seem to be in the minority, judging from the figures I've seen over the past few years.
Second of all, I have to ask what you consider your "fair share", because if it's more than 300x what I made that year, I can tell you for certain it's not "fair".
Third, unless you're running a very small company (which is, of course, entirely possible), you are not personally responsible for procuring 100% of the business.
Now, don't get me wrong: unlike many slashdotters, I believe that someone with really good management skills can make a *huge* difference to a company or whatever fraction thereof he is given charge of. But you can't pretend that executive compensation in America, in general, is anything short of insane right now. Executives get brought in, proceed to take the company boldly into completely the wrong direction, lose it billions of dollars, and are sent packing with a "golden parachute" worth more money than my gross income combined over my entire lifespan.
You may very well be different. And, in all honesty, that might be the exception, and not the rule: I haven't done exhaustive research to come up with statistics on it. But I do know that the average executive salary is more than the average worker's salary by a greater percentage than (I believe) it ever has been in the past—including during the Gilded Age before there were any labour laws.
Don't even try to claim that this is the way it should be.
Dan Aris
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Re:Job Loyalty? How about orker loyalty? (Score:5, Insightful)
My advice to you is find a few of your most talented younger employees and see if they can help you streamline the way you operate on a day to day basis. See if they can help you clean out the uneccesary, process-oriented BS in your proceedures and focus on what will make you money.
Also, please take a vacation. Judging from your post, you are pretty stressed out.
I think your heart is in the right place, you just need to rethink some things so that all of your effort isn't wasted.
Parent
Re:Job Loyalty? How about orker loyalty? (Score:5, Insightful)
Following your hypothetical - Without me, you have no product to sell. Without you, I still have the product, just not an efficient way to get it to market.
The combination benefits us both, but don't get all uppity that you "make" the company. Put bluntly, I can do your job (admittedly not as well as you). You can't do my job at all. If I make half as many sales without you, I make the same, and you starve in the gutter.
This is what people don't understand: sales *is* hard. If it were easier, you'd get paid more.
Selling refridgerators to Esquimos takes work. Selling gasoline to an SUV owner takes nothing more than physical presence.
Most products fall between those two, but if you believe "sales" really takes hard work, you most likely don't really care about serving your customers' needs, just closing the sale - Which means I would neither work for/with you nor buy from you.
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Re:Job Loyalty? How about orker loyalty? (Score:5, Funny)
This is exactly the attitude that gets your IT staff pissed off. When half of their work can only be performed after everyone else has gone home for the day and are on call 24/7 for whenever something goes wrong, believe me, you certainly don't trump them."
You know...if someone is holding a GUN to your head forcing you to do this....PLEASE call the police.
Parent
Re:Job Loyalty? How about orker loyalty? (Score:5, Funny)
--Catbert, evil director of human resources
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Re:Job Loyalty? How about orker loyalty? (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree 100%. I like my work, and will work my butt off, but, I will not work for free. I hope I never have to have a salary job again. Even when I have to do some contract work W2, I go hourly. But, I prefer c2c 1099 work. I can easily afford my own insurance (I'm a bit of a risk, but, still only about $200/mo)...and with the high deductible insurance, I can run my own HSA (Health Savings Account), and sock away about $2900/yr pre-tax, and use that to pay any medical fees...glasses, contacts...OTC meds, etc. The HSA isn't use it or lose it as are the medical savings accounts you get as a direct employee. I can also invest the money in the HSA like an IRA..and have it grow over time too. In the long run, you can come out way ahead that way.
Also, if you incorporate, you can write stuff off (cell phone, mileage, internet connectivity)...and best of all, with an "S" corp, you can save a good deal of money spent on employment taxes (SS, Medicare).
I'm loyal to whomever wants to pay me. I'll work when they need, as much as they need, but, I will make money for ever second I'm there. I'll happily take that money, and invest it myself for my retirement.
Years back, I learned that the old days of company job for life was over. The companies have NO loyalty at all for employees. I figured, fine...if that's the case, then I'll treat them the same way. If I'm just a body....then they are just a paycheck, and I'll go wherever the biggest paycheck comes from.
Parent
Generalizing Generations (Score:5, Interesting)
These sorts of broad characterizations about the youngin's have been going on forever.
If you really want some insight into how generations interact in America, and how this interaction influences history, check out Strauss & Howe's Generations [wikipedia.org], a book published in 1991 that still offers many insights.
Re:Generalizing Generations (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Generalizing Generations (Score:5, Funny)
How does it stack up against Star Trek: Generations?
Less shooting, less baldness, less special effects, a lot more text.
Parent
Company Loyalty is a myth (Score:5, Insightful)
As an employee, my loyalty extends only to the next paycheck, and no further.
Want to assure my loyalty, treat me like a person, not a 'resource'.
Give me what I need to do my Job, and listen to how I could possibly do my job better.
Give me training, don't let the value of my skills decline.
Give me a mentor, don't just sit me at a cube and expect to learn EVERYTHING myself.
Many companies think they can just bully young employees into working long hours, for crappy pay, nope, not me. But then again, I'm in engineering, and NOT IT, so it's a bit different.
I bet I know which generation the author is from.. (Score:5, Insightful)
No job loyalty? Well, my employer will ditch me whenever it's convenient for them, so why shouldn't I treat them the same? My older co-workers do the same. This is a fact of the modern workplace and is generation neutral.
Demand more than we're worth? Ok... Well if I have a job offer for 20% more elsewhere, I'm worth 20% more... It's not my problem that you have "no budget for raises" three consecutive years. My value increased over those years even if your shitty business model didn't. Now if you want to tell me that I demand more than I'm worth to you, then we'll talk... Or if you want to revisit the loyalty issue, maybe I'll be willing to cut you some salary slack... Either way, I also don't think this is a generational issue since many of my older co-workers are significantly overpaid for their contribution level without even needing to ask. This leads into the third point.
No respect for older co-workers? Well I'll cop to this in a conditional fashion. I have tremendous respect for some of my older co-workers. The ones that pull their weight, keep up with required knowledge, and appreciate the value of a more junior contributor than themselves. The ones that a right all the time because of what their resume says, and not due to any critical thinking, and who contribute zero to an effort beyond their experience can go suck a nut. I can put an older co-worker into one of these buckets within a few technical conversations. If somebody disagrees with me on a technical issue and tells me why with a reasoned explanation, they go in the "earned my respect, and a mental note to learn as much from them as possible". If the same situation arises and the more senior co-worker explains that their right by quoting their resume to me they go in the "probably full of shit 90% of the time" bucket.
Gen Y gets it right. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the Gen Y or Millenials or whatever they're called has their priorities in order. Basing your life on your career and job is idiotic and I think that's where my generation is clueless when it comes the Gen Y'ers attitude towards work. They mistake wanting a life with apathy towards their job. Jobs come and go and are easy to get; but people who really matter to you are hard to find.
Parent
Younger workers are bolder and more informed. (Score:5, Interesting)
For example - a friend told me that due to company policies, the SSL port was blocked by the company, so there was no way to securely communicate with the outside (or between the workers themselves, for example, by testing the network - a lot of them used MSN). What kind of policy is that? Just to keep information from leaking without being detected? How about emergencies? People then transferred files and information via open chat, where EVERYBODY could see it. Including non-loyal employees. Last thing I knew is that my friends' team ended up using http tunnelling. In the end, nothing was gained and the IT team spent more time than they should to just work around stupid company policies.
Another example: Forbidding non-default apps, I think this was discussed before. So you can't for example install software that will make your Windows safer, like Ad-aware or Firefox.
This is the problem about management. You just put an idiot in front of the department and have him send orders here and there. But programmers are hackers by nature, we find out how things work and find a way to make them more efficient - whether authorized or not. And the difference between younger and older people is that older people tend to play more by the rules - even when they know the rules are WRONG.
A "safe computing" seminar given by a security expert, could make things much more efficient at work, and educate employees to act smarter instead of having to babysit them with counterproductive policies.
Gen Y (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the big difference is not anything they point out here.
1) Face it, computers are basically as intimidating as cash registers. They are tools. Nothing more, nothing less. There is a mind set in a lot of workers - of any age - to be intimidated by certain technologies. Younger workers are more likely to be less intimidated by computers as they are familiar with them. Stick a Gen-Y in front of the controls of a 747 and you get a different reaction. Basically, the Gen-Y's are being presented with a technology for which they have a framework to be able to approach the technology as a tool, not a roadblock.
Seriously.. in the IT field, we can tell who will be good at IT based upon how intimidated they are by the box coming in the door.
2) As to length of time at a job.. well, the days of going down and getting that job at the town mill/factory and working until retirement are gone. I recall my father working a couple years at one job, then moving to the next job, then the next trying to build up that resume so he could land a job at one of the major plants in the area. When you get down to it, I think a lot of the view of how-things-were is nothing more than mis-remembering how things were. Back then, the US was where the jobs were and the companies planned to stay around awhile and there were unions to act as a balance. Companies promoted from within. Usually.
Now? It was not the Gen-Y's who moved the garment industry to Central America and China in the 1970's. They weren't even born yet. They did not move the auto industry to Japan. They did not move the semi-conductor industry to Taiwan. They aren't the ones moving IT jobs to India now.
They are the ones who are going to have to deal with those moves. They are the ones who have to come up with a coping mechanism for the current state of business.
And, one of those realities is that there is no industry or company that there is a reasonable expectation of retirement in 30 years. Get a job in IT and, even if it looks good now, what will the new CEO do in 5 years?
While I think there is hope for the individuals that comprise Gen-Y and a lot of companies, I don't see too much overlap in their outlooks. Companies do *not* have much loyalty to their employees and will look at the bottom-line first. The employees need to do the same. Gen-Y seems to better adapted to this sort of reality as it is the one they grew up in.
Every Generation Is Like This (Score:5, Insightful)
The previous one thinks they're feckless and idle, the new one thinks they're god's gift. The previous one had radical and new ideas in their day, the new one has radical and new ideas of their own. So all this stuff about "different cos they grew up with technology" is nothing new. Every generation "grew up with technology" of their time, they're nothing special.
My bet is that in 30 years time we'll still be reading stuff about the latest generation "growing up with technology" and how this is overhauling the preconceptions of previous generations, whose own "growing up with technology" is apparently no longer good enough.
Company loyalty (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a nice example of why the current generation has no loyalty to its employers.
I work in the same place my father did. He's been working at the same company for 25 years. When he got there there was a clear expectation that it was a place where you could develop a carreer, and the company made efforts to retain employees. Good maternal/paternal leave, extended health benefits, country club, child care, discounts for many vacation places, gifts for employees' children for Christmas (I recall they were amazing gifts; I got a chemistry set and a bicycle on two of those years), a baby shower gift package for newborns with towels, diapers and food.
20 years later, and all of that has completely vanished. One generation later and none of that is to be seen, and I doubt if there's some corporation today that has such an extensive benefits package on what once were excellent benefits but were considered within the norm.And the thing is, some of those benefits didn't add up to that much monetarily, but they did at least give the impression that the company took extra steps to take care of you.
So, tell me again, why do these people deserve my loyalty now when it is clear that I could be laid off any minute without them looking back?
Re:No Loyality (Score:5, Insightful)
Now I work for a small company where I'm valued on a more personal level. As the company grows so does my position within the company. There's no room for politics. I'm not saying I'm completely loyal and will never leave, but my job is stable and generally more enjoyable. My family is no longer impressed, but they don't understand that I'm actually better off.
Parent
Re:Riddled with stereotypes (Score:5, Insightful)
The point still remains that my brother has a far different experience with computers than I did, being younger. He's almost always had the internet and doesn't know the pain of a router with a 56k modem. All the same I know how to use a computer much better than he does, even when i was his age. He shows little to no interest in them, and that might make a certain age group have a sweet spot - They grew up comfortable with technological change (not any particular one, but fundamentally), but were still young enough to know a few of the inner workings of computers, back when you had to fool around for an hour or so to get a game to install or a driver to work, back when everything had different ports, and plugging something in meant rebooting, installing, rebooting... when it was cheaper to build your own computer, or when if something went wrong you couldn't just scrap the computer.
Some aspects of computing might be lost to those not computer science majors because we've done such a good job, just like much of our generation as a whole doesn't have a clue how to do carpentry, fix a car, or do basic home repair - these things are supposed to work, and when they don't you call someone else in to fix them.
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Re:Riddled with stereotypes (Score:5, Insightful)
Hypothetical example: most new developers can quickly setup a streaming video from their website, but have little or no idea how TCP/IP nor video decoding actually works. Yes, I know it's sort of a pointless thing to know when you don't "need" to know it, just saying that the previous generation seemed to have been a bit more curious about things, even if they didn't "need" to know them.
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Re:Applause is in order (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed, this is the third posting I've seen today (second from this poster) which looks like a yahoo.com and ends up being members.on.nimp.org (REALLY NSWF, don't go there) which will randomly show some of the nastier web imagery.
Nasty stuff.
Cheers
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