3 Lessons from Millennials that can Empower IT Strategy

Featured article by Shyam Oza, Senior Product Manager, AvePoint

Perform a few searches online for “millennials” and you’ll come across a number of people trying to define and understand a generation. They’re referred to by some as “lazy, entitled, and self-obsessed.” But in reality, millennials are a massive collection of personalities that can be impossible to generalize.

Being born in the 1980s, I am a millennial by definition. This baffles me, because I grew up learning to do research at the library by navigating the Dewey Decimal System, deposited my first paycheck in person at a bank, learned to read a map, and had a meeting place at the mall in case of emergencies. Yet phones were always music players and pay phones are strange relics. They never waited for dial-up internet connection – it’s just always on. Everyone has a Facebook account and MySpace seems like a distant memory.

I’m not alone – hundreds of thousands of people globally are joining the workforce with the millennial label and they come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences. Despite the diversity among segments of millennials, there are a few positive personality traits that span the entire generation – and they can be key learning points for business and IT. Not expecting a need to shift your perspective and strategy to better deliver IT to the business today is just foolish.

What Really Matters?

This is the first time in human history that someone has had so many options to interact with others across the planet in real-time. Generations before now travelled, placed long-distance phone calls, and maybe maintain a relationship with a pen pal or two to keep in touch with people around the world. Millennials are immersed in food, culture, and ideas on a global scale at the click of a button.

While there might be a few too many cat videos and pictures of last night’s dinner online, this signifies an incredible shift in the world that we often overlook. We are in a world where citizens are instantly connected and aware of the bigger picture around them. Twitter helped break the traditional news cycle when Osama Bin Laden was killed. Text messages allow people in Africa to make bank depositsFacebook lets us know our friends and loved ones abroad are safe in times of tragedy and disaster faster than ever. Below are a few good strategies IT can take away from how millennials live and how they can translate them into the greater IT strategies:

1. Millennials are Always On: We listen to podcasts on our way into work, message friends on Google Hangouts, and send photos to loved ones across the globe on WeChat. We are constantly checking our devices for what’s trending on social media, iMessages, Tweets, emails and more. It comes naturally, and is expected that the systems we use in the office work like the ones at home. I expect to share documents just like I share photos, call someone at any time (with video if I want), and that my collaboration systems are always up like I am. I don’t want to wait for weekly meetings or sift through long email threads to raise an issue. Millennials will prefer stand-up meetings, ad-hoc syncs, and sharing content with global teams. Platforms that focus on dynamic collaboration like Office 365, Trello, and Google for Work excel with this market segment and will help you get the best out of your team in a simple, user-friendly way.

2. Millennials Care about the Environment and the Future: Millennials are heavily influenced by what they hear and see in the world around them. They are more conscious of what their organization is doing to contribute to the things that they care about personally as well. Going paperless is a major shift in helping the environment and if you don’t have systems in place that allow for digital collaboration, electronic document signing, and paperless meetings, you’ll be hard pressed to find a reason not to. Products like DocuSign and Do.com are great potential candidates to get started.

3. Millennials will Challenge you: In a world where Twitter is used to help coordinate rescue efforts in the wake of a natural disaster, there is rarely an excuse for your organization’s messaging app lacking a critical feature or going down. Utilizing legacy, locally hosted messaging apps or relying strictly on email is a surefire way to ensure millennials will never contribute to the enterprise’s information stream. It’s also pretty hard to come up with an excuse when Skype, Slack, and Zapier are available as effective messaging and team communication services.

In the end, a business being flooded with millennials must understand that these employees will question, demand the right tools, and, most importantly, work and produce like no generation before us. It’s time to keep up or be left in millennials’ dust.