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Gen Y Workers Reinventing IT for the Better
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."
Is it any wonder, with tens of thousands of layoffs every couple of years, why workers don't feel a strict loyalty to the companies that employ them? If the company isn't willing to maintain their educated, trained, experienced workforce through a minor downturn, then they should expect the employees to look for better opportunities.
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, a book published in 1991 that still offers many insights.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Ask Bill Gates if there's anything wrong with having lots of backing when you need it. Getting time on computers in high school, going to college and having a backing were all very good for Microsoft. The same lessons and more apply today because there are far fewer "real" jobs to go around thanks to H1B stuff. Ignoring resources is harmful.
Mod this down, Very NSFW.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Company loyalty does not exist with respect to a company's 'loyalty' to an employee.
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.
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.
As easy as that. It's not easy to change a whole corporate culture, so in the end you have to break the rules to get more efficient.
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.
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.
The description is just flat out wrong.
/rant over.
Employees today (skilled employees, not "data input specialists") are OVER educated for their jobs. Think about how common it is for people to be in college these days. EVERYONE has a bachelor's degree in something. Schools are pumping out MBAs by the Auditorium load. The sad thing is that these people are UNDER paid.
Their bosses expectations are also WAY too high. People work 60+ hours a week for 30,000 a year. These are people with college degrees! These same people are given HUGE ammounts of responsibility, but very little authority to actually take care of their responsibilities without interaction from "higher-ups".
The pay scales need to change.
$30,000 a year might have been enough money to live on in 1990, but it isn't anymore. Try and rent an apartment in a major city in this country on a $30,000 a year salary. Now pay your power bill, your internet bill (so that you can work even while you're AT HOME), pay your car payment, your insurance, buy the clothes that meet your companies dress code, oh yeah, and maybe even buy food while you're at it. Don't even THINK about buying gas for that car too.
As far as disrespect towards older employees:
This is just ridiculous. Age should NOT be an issue related to making decisions. It should be based on experience, and knowledge. If I am more experience, and more knowledgeable about a topic then you are, you're damned right I'm going to tell you if you are forcing me to do something that is going to make ME look bad.
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
It is the same old story, retold generation after generation. I wonder how much of this cycle is a part of natural life, and how much of it comes from ignorance? After all, you'd think people would clue in that when they were young they heard the same kinds of things they are now telling a new generation of young folks. This at least seems to be a tangible way to lesser the effects of such nonsense; because the young won't so strongly revile older generations without their antecedents being so intolerable to the change their own seeds have sown.
While change may be harder to accept the older you get, is it possible that this concept too is being challenged? It is one thing to be a farmer or an industrial worker all your life -- surely being intolerant of change is almost inevitable here. Yet, in such a dynamic economy, with jobs changing constantly, and information accessibility just beginning to reach extraordinary heights -- is it possible that tolerance of change will be ingrained in the coming generation? Imagine the kind of changes that would likely mean for society as a whole!
So far as I am aware, none of these guys grew up in a datacentre, with terabytes of enterprise storage, robotic backups, commercial quality databases or corporate security policies. To try and scale up from having a Nintendo as a child, to being able to instantly grasp the complexities of a mulitnational network infrastructure is a bit of a leap.
If people think that because they have always had a PC or a Mac, that qualifies them to have an opinion on "IT" (whatever that is) then there are going to be some rather big surprises coming.
However that could explain a lot of the more egregious IT problems in industry and commerce.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I spent 10 years working for large financial companies. Everyone I knew outside work thought I had the most stable job, while a few times I was very close to being part of large layoffs. It was very hard to advance because of competition and politics with coworkers.
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.
Developers: We can use your help.
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.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
You're a bit off on your generations, or rather those in the workforce. Even if all they needed was a HS diploma, they'd still need to be born in 1989. If they did have access to a computer at a young age, it had a floppy; USB didn't become popular until at least 98, and wasn't common until 2002 or so. I also bet they didn't get broadband until 2000+.
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.
I am not an expert. If I am misled in something, please correct me.
What matters and what will ALWAYS matter are the RESULTS.
This article is beyond stupid. It's littered with "may" and "could".
Realize that the 50 year olds of today were the kids of the 60's.
I've been to parties in years past with young derivatives traders oh-so-impressed that they were of the generation that had removed all risk from our financial markets. Surely kids who have gotten tech degrees and jobs, but basically find tech boring and so mostly want the thrill (and money!) of a fast track to upper management can make the rest of our industries just as brilliant as it's turned out the financial sector is. Oh yeah. Let's bet the economy of the 2010's on this batch of clowns.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
What's with the fuss? Every generation is like this.
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.
I'm 24, my section manager is 37 and my department manager is 44.
When my department manager called design meetings on products he wanted to design, I frequently shot down his ideas.
Why?
Because they're so bad that a 24 year old with 2 years out of college can pick them up with just a spot check from looking at his ideas. I can't disclose the details for the usual reasons, but suffice it to say that the ideas ranged from "no one would buy it because no one could use it" to "you might get our customers arrested for trying to market a product that can evade European telecommunication laws."
Let me tell you, it's hard working someone who is nearly twice your age, makes probably 3 times more than you do, and you know has no freakin' idea about how to design a product and get it out there to the customer, especially when he originally came from a technical background. It's hard because of the fact that everytime you interact with them, you feel like you are in a twilight zone where competence varies directly with youth.
Here's a fact, that hopefully people will learn someday. There is little connection between age and wisdom. Age will in fact make those who lack wisdom even worse because it gives them time to compound their foolishness.
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.
One common arrogance of youth is to presume one knows enough to adequately judge the qualities of the old. I'm not really old yet, but I've learned as I've left youth behind is that I didn't know nearly as much as I thought I did, and that I didn't even recognize that I needed to learn much of what I've learned. In fact you should respect older co-workers, not give them a blank check of course, but respect them. You don't know what wisdom they may have.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
I've noticed that the `new' (eh!) generation is a bit shallow in their skills or curiosity. Most can quickly pickup front end things, but for most `hard' stuff, they expect an existing library to be present.
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.
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
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?
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
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Who gives a fuck? Show up to work on time. Stop texting during 15 minutes meetings. Basically STFU and do your job well enough so that I trust you to make your own decisions. Stop questioning everything because at the end of the day your MySpace page experience is bullshit.
This
I currently work in IT, have been the last 7 or so years. Before that I was a grease monkey, nothing I loved more than fixing a car. Today when my car breaks down, I take it to someone else. When my computer breaks down, I fix it myself. The reason I do this, is I love working on computers as much as I used to love working on cars. They are both similar to an extent, most computer fixes not software related are swapping out a part, theres 90% or better of your car fixes, diagnostics, troubleshooting. The major difference in the two for me, rather than fighting through an inch layer of grease the dirtiest thing in a PC I fight are dust bunnies. I still love working on cars, but not as much as I used to.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
NSFW?!? Not safe, period!!!!
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
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
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The way I see this, as a college student who grew up around computers and had one in the house by 94(or thereabouts, I was kinda young then), is that by now there's really no need to re-invent the wheel-- programming is quite (not difficult, but somewhat frustrating at times) enough as it is, and since we've had a while to understand software modularity, it's not shallowness, it's putting components together to make a different part. Somewhat like the difference between a Ford Model T that is hand-assembled versus a custom kit car built entirely from other components. *shrug* Maybe I'm in the wrong field, but I like using components that "just work" and putting them to use in different ways, and as long as a library exists to do it, why not use it?
How in bloody hell does pointing out that the link is going to members.on.nimp.org constitute flamebait? Hell, read the posting history for Lord Haw Haw.
Or, should I assume the trolls posting this crap somehow have gotten themselves mod points??
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I'm an old fart who's been in this industry for a quarter century. About a year ago I started working at a company with a lot of young'uns just a few years out of school. I have never worked with a smarter, more creative group of people in my career. Sure, they don't feel much job loyalty, but who can blame them, given corporate behavior in recent years. These people are hard-working and dedicated, and they give me hope for the future.
No sig? Sigh...
BTW, I agree with you 100%. But it's not going to change as most people are too afraid of jeopardizing their job to do what is necessary to bring income disparity back to a sane level. Part of this can be blamed on union-busting (as well as the questionable efficacy of some unions), part of it can be blamed on the cabal of execs/large stockholders who appoint eachother to high-paying positions.
We'll see what happens as the US economy sits in the shitter for a few years -- it's possible that workers may be able to reclaim some of the losses of the past two decades... but I doubt it. The people calling the shots are nearly untouchable, as they control the corporations, the media, the government, and the banking system. (Note that I'm not a conspiracy theorist... "the people" I refer to are a diverse group and not some backroom org). The class divide in the US is real, and it's not going anywhere.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
One of you guys/gals at Slashdot might consider writing some Perl
or Python to check posted links for GNAA troll links tacked onto redirects,
or some variation on that theme.
Good Luck...
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
I really question the usefulness of this type of article. One can no more make accurate blanket statements about an age demographic than one could about an ethnic demographic. We don't see articles about what types of risks Latino workers pose to an IT infrastructure. No one would touch that with a ten foot pole. If anyone asked me to make such an assessment, I'd point out that people are all individuals, and I could easily point to good and bad examples from any given group. People should be assessed on their own merits, and not prejudged before they even act based on membership in some arbitrary category.
But while anything that could be perceived as bashing a gender or ethnic group is off limits, the age demographics are still fair game apparently. Why? What useful information is to be gained by collecting anecdotal evidence, and then posting this type of "kids these days..." article? Should IT people treat workers differently based on age? Certainly not! Should hiring practices be informed by this type of article? I think that would be a mistake.
I can't wait for the article that tells me not to hire Caucasian lesbians between the ages of 30 and 45, because they spend all day downloading episodes of The L Word on Bit Torrent.
I'd prefer that I be judged on what I do or don't do, rather than someone's perception of my "group"... whatever that is.
Our younger folk is used to using different technologies in a changing application environment (yahoo, google, win98, winxp, osx, desktops, laptops, mobile pdas).
In the end, I think the older generation can develop the better tools. The new generation can create the better apps. Just like in my generation, the older gen was better at creating the h/w tools for us to create great s/w frameworks. Hence why the newer gen needs the older gen.
And the world is complete again.
if god forbid you have a chronic or congenital condition - heart murmur, asthma, family history of anything at all, severe allergy to something or other.
Really. From experience: private health insurance isn't worth the paper it's written on, and your rates will screw you if there is anything that they can call a risk... or worse yet, you get "coverage" and then they claim that everything under the sun is "related to a pre-existing condition" and force you to go into court to try to get them to pay, knowing they can run the clock for fucking years before having to present you with your check and hoping that you'll give up after the umpteenth appeal their army of shysters^H^H^H^H^H demonic assholes^H^H^H^H^H^H lawyers file.
Shop around for doctors like you do anything else
It's the emergency stuff I most worry about. There's nothing worse than sitting in the emergency room and being told by the nurse that you have to talk to the insurance company's lawyer to get approval while you're coughing blood. And when it's an emergency, "shop around" doesn't apply.
That and the fact that you can't "shop around" for insurance. Every time you apply for insurance and get rejected, they stick it in the file and it's a black mark against you for future applications because the other companies go "hey, company X rejected, let's find out why using triplicate forms and make sure it takes longer than they're willing to spend time on to even apply for ours."
My Senior in the last company I worked for is around about 55 right now. He's one of the best programmers I've every worked with. Humorous, patient, respectfull to me (ca. 15 years younger, his subordinate), allways helpfull and an absolute wizbang when it comes to picking up new technology. And allthough me made no secret of it that he thought I am not as good a programmer as I might be a key account manager or consultant, he allways had a good word for my coding and my ideas. Some of which were better than his which he never denied. I introduced him to Linux, Python and OSS Webkits (he had like 20 years of Pascal & Delphi under his belt :-) ) and he was way ahead of me 6 months later.
... He actually *can* programm a few lines of PHP (also because I help him along) - but *everyone* should be able to do that in a PL of his choice - remember the C64 days? What an upside it is to know what computers were built for, no? ... On it goes: He's at least as slow and detailed in his work and as easyly distracted as I am, but that's no problem. Because when he's moderating our talk with the Boss, explaining our custom CRM to end-customers, staying calm when I get all agitated over some issue or just plain doing the template/testing grunt-work it just feels great to have him around.
The Project Manager I'm now working with as contract Lead Programmer is a 22 years old Media Designer Trainee. He's 16 years younger than me. In his spare time (nights and weekends) he's the founder, Project Lead and lead modeler of Star Wars - The New Era, a Half-Life 2 Total Conversion Mod that allready has raised some brows of Lucas Arts Execs. The man (boy?) is a fucking genius. He sucks at programming but that's not his job.
If I had 10 Million Euros to found the kind of IT company I have in mind, these two would be the first I'd call. They are more than 30 years apart. And I somehow can't shake the feeling they both would get along with each other wonderfully aswell.
Bottom line: Generation & gender issues are mostly hysteria. If you've got the right people it nearly matters squat what age they are, if they are a man or a woman, if they are a Granny/Grandpa or barely out of school. And if they are the right people, they all will get along perfectly. That's my experience anyway.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
...Actually, if you define "The US" as "The World" then you might be right. But executive compensation *in the US* is positively insane compared to all other countries that are ostensibly our peers.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/exhibit/2006/05/perks_of_privilege.html
Fooling yourself into thinking this is a rational and efficient free market reminiscent of the one described by Smith is a naive and charming fairy tale, as well as an impressive feat of self delusion. The real problem is that this not a free market, but mostly one of good ol' boys clubs and cronies who also have the influence and power to rewrite the rules of the game in their favor.