Generation Y 2.0

So much has been written already but what is happening right now and what do we need to be thinking about when it comes to the China’s future workforce?
Although China is experiencing a slow down in exports and property sales, it remains one of the least exposed countries in the financial crisis. Many hope that this will lead to closer ties and cooperation with the western continents and ideally support the IMF in the global crisis.
While many may fear China’s growing superpower, what would happen if China was not able to sustain its markets in years to come? Amazingly, with a population of over 200 million in the Generation Y age group, way outnumbering the 7% over 65’s, and 5 million graduates entering the market each year, China is still struggling to find the right talent, especially in key positions and with few top talents in the pool, the long term future of China’s leadership is still uncertain.

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In these times of survival there are going to be a number of skills, capabilities, characteristics or traits that are going to be needed to rely upon. There appear to be a number of ‘soft skills’ that will distinguish those with not only the survival skills but the ability to help carry their organisation and themselves forward. These may include for example: self awareness, ability to communicate and relate, emotional intelligence, ability to evaluate complex problems, passion, entrepreneurial spirit, positive thinking, and curiosity.

Curiosity can be described as the desire to learn or to know an object that arouses interest, an emotion that causes curious behaviour, or just being inquisitive or nosey!

Without curiosity what would we have missed or would have happened to these guys - Sir Walter Raleigh, Captain James Cook, Richard Branson, Akio Morita, Friends Reunited, YouTube, Dyson, the entrepreneurs of Dragon’s Den, Harry Potter or perhaps this guy:

“The important thing is not to stop questionning”, Albert Einstein

For GenY and those with ‘Y behaviours’ this may be part of what distinguishes them, and something that our baby boomers and Gen X need to encourage. But don’t forget that “curiosity is common to human beings at all ages from infancy to old age”, Wikipedia. So this is something we must share across the generations.

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Whilst our Generation Y colleagues provide significant commercial opportunity for many businesses such as advertising, shopping, gaming, and e-commerce, and entrepreneurial benefits for others, they are also proving a headache. A headache for those who have yet to redefine their IT strategies in order to accommodate integrated media platforms whilst safeguarding company security and data protection.

In “IT Security’s Next Big Threat: Young People”, in Dark Reading, editor Tim Wilson concludes from three recent studies that our Yers “are engaging in online behaviour that could expose their organizations to data leakage and information theft”. The question being whether it is the behaviours or the company policies and training that are ultimately to blame.

More and more people are using Instant Messaging, social networking, open source technology, and other online applications rather than traditional tools and email, many of which are not supported by their employers. On top of this there appears to be a growing need for online learning suites.

Chris Sparshott provided the keynote at the Digital Technologies Professional Learning Symposium in Auckland, NZ, recently, using a Generation Y persona to illustrate his perspective on the need for training and education to embrace the benefits of the computer/video gaming, virtual worlds and 3D UIs that our Y’ers and Generation Z have grown up with. David Williamson Schaffer long pointed out the benefit of educational games that can bring players together, promote interactive learning and help individuals absorb fairly dry complex topics, for example. Also Daniel Sieberg from CBS News more recently reported on the benefits of the right games in education to help individuals learn, solve problems and overcome obstacles.

Whilst some organisations are looking to revise their platforms to accommodate the new tools and new ways of working, others are tightening their policies whilst many continue to remain exposed in more ways than one.

The three studies mentioned above came from Accenture, Intel and ISACA (a major IT users group):

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