Generation Y and the Workplace Annual Report 2010 - Haworth

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Global WorkPlace Innovation
Social Networking
Scanning the multitude of media pronouncements
on Generation Y, you could be forgiven for
thinking that the demographic deficit of retiring
Baby Boomers and insufficient Generation Y
replacements is why we are all so interested in
them. But the numbers game is not it. No, it is the
social revolution they are triggering. Youth culture
operates through “self-constructed networks of
shared social practice and sets behavioural trends
that influence people of all ages”. We know that
connecting, talking, sharing, tagging, and creating
and distributing content is a natural behaviour
for them. They are taking their social habits
into the workplace to the enormous advantage
of enterprises, which have not yet realised it!
Employ a member of Generation Y and you get
the advantage of their entire network, which they
bring with them to work every day through their
permanent connectivity.
Among the social networking sites queried in
Oxygenz, Facebook was the overwhelming choice
of both females & males. There were slight
tendencies (maybe suggestive; maybe not) for
Facebook and MySpace to be slightly more popular
among females than males, while LinkedIn may
have been slightly more popular among males
than females.
Not that all employers see this networked
sociability as an advantage. A fear of time-wasting
has led to many organisations banning access to
social networking sites. This might just be a futile
attempt to hold back the tide. A swell of online
articles, blogs, publications 56 , research and books
indicate a growing appreciation of the business
advantages of social networking technologies.
Generation Y themselves will force change as they
seek out employers of choice.
Adoption of enterprise social networking will
accelerate as Generation Y makes their presence
felt in the workplace 57 .
Copyright © 2010, Johnson Controls. Confidential. All Rights Reserved.
Intellectual Property Johnson Controls, Haworth and iDEA.
Too much emphasis these days
is put on self. I’d like to see
people recognizing that team
effort towards a common goal
is in your best interest.
Ledine, 1970
Core elements of social networking technologies
are profiles, ‘friends’ that constitute a selfdefined
social group, and a comments function where
public interactions and relationships with others
are displayed . How is Generation Y using social
networking technologies? According to Joshua
March, CEO of iPlatform and himself in the
Generation Y demographic, “Generation Y is
Facebook ‘friend’ widely. Status updates through
Facebook or Twitter begins to be more engaging
as you elect to follow what others say.
Communication within a wider network of weaker
connections creates opportunity for ‘water cooler’
conversations and the opportunity to get to know
a larger and more diverse group than would be
possible face-to-face.”
So what’s the business advantage? Social
technologies reveal who is connected to whom and
amplify collective intelligence within and across
enterprise boundaries. Used in a corporate setting,
the technologies connect previously unknown
colleagues around common interests and specific
topics, exchanging, sharing, learning and finding
answers. They show who the high-performers are,
where value is created, who creates it, and the
roles key people play in sourcing and acting on
new, value-creating knowledge. Another benefit of
the technologies is that they shrink social distance
within a distributed workforce.
Generation Y have unleashed the social
networking genie. Smart businesses know that
technologies are not going back in the bottle and
are learning to embrace the social revolution,
adapting their business processes and ways of
working and managing.
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