Why IT Needs To Change for Gen Z 443
An anonymous reader writes "Staff will routinely be bringing their own devices to work in five years time, according to IT industry experts in the UK. Some companies might already allow a few iPhones and iPads, but CIOs and businesses are not only going to have to support a general influx of consumer kits — they're going to need to get a whole lot more relaxed in general. 'Big businesses are going to have to become more flexible about how IT is provisioned and managed — to enable a new generation of workers who use consumer technologies to communicate and be productive.'"
Re:Not where I work... (Score:3, Interesting)
No I do think people are missing a point. I think what will happen is that people will be allowed and encouraged to bring their own devices. BUT those devices will be treated as security risks. Then to get into the network it will be a sort of private cloud type situation.
Think of it as follows; you bring your iphone and you access your corporate network using a terminal. That terminal does not let you share with the local environment. It is completely closed off from your own data. I have already seen some prototypes in the investment banking field.
Re:Why Gen Z Needs To Change for Work (Score:5, Interesting)
So your CEO walks in with his new iPhone and wants to access his mobile reporting solution. The one containing all his sales information. You're telling him he can't?
And if the CEO has it, his underlings will have it a few weeks later. They still outrank you. You're going to tell them they can't have it? And when all the managers have it, how long will it be before EVERYONE has access?
Seriously: start preparing, because the tidal wave is coming. It is already happening. 17% of companies now have a "bring-your-own-device" policy in place (a quote from 2 weeks ago by Claudia Imhoff, she spoke at a BI-event I was at). Some provide a choice: company laptop with maintenance or your own device but you do the maintenance. This will grow rapidly.
Philips was migrating to this policy about 5 years ago. Big companies I'm working for are already preparing for that transition. The ones who are not, will find it very hard to satisfy their interal customers. They will also find retainment of new workers a big problem.
Ofcourse this is difficult: it is most difficult for those companies that still have software in place with dedicated clientsoftware, beyond MS Office. Companies (like a few where I worked) that started moving away from that and to webbased apps, are in good position to actually profit from this move.
Re:I don't think so (Score:4, Interesting)
"It doesn't matter what generation anyone belongs to -- you'll do things the way the employer wants them done, or you won't be employed."
This is not true, nor is it ideal. If a whole generation of people, or even half of that generation, is willing to continually break the rules to use their own devices, employers cannot commence with the wholesale termination of half their labor force. Production would grind to a halt. There would be economic turmoil.
No, if they're smart, employers will find a way to use the workers own technology as free capital.
This is not only a shift in technology, but a whole generation of people communicate differently! Every new mode of communication has been disruptive of the previous: post disrupted the courier, telegraph disrupted post, telephone disrupted telegraph, electronic mail disrupted all the previous, and now we have technologies to send visual as well as text along (PDF attachments, for example) that have disrupted hitherto necessarily paper documents -- are we at all surprised that text messaging, twitter, and facebook should disrupt elements of previous forms of communication?
This is not a question of "what will employers allow" but rather "how do people communicate".
Re:I don't think so (Score:4, Interesting)
The thing about kids is that they are never even half of your workforce and their are usually plenty more where you found the ones you've got now.
The ones that can't get over facebook make good waiters/waitresses.
Employers only need to deal with one year of new hires per year.
On the other hand if a companies business model is 'Facebook/twitter users are stupid attention whores, we separate stupid people from their money.' their might be value in allowing work access to facebook and twitter.
Re:Not where I work... (Score:4, Interesting)
How does your company attract and retain talent with such draconian policies?