It is estimated that "millennials"—loosely defined as individuals born after 1984—will make up 75 percent of the U.S. workforce by 2025. This digitally literate group is umbilically attached to its social networks and accustomed to real-time everything. Millennials don't know a world without cell phones or life before the Internet, and they expect this technology to surround them wherever they go. Employers are being forced to rethink and refresh their workplaces in order to recruit and retain this rising generation.
Today's innovative workplace can cater to the millennial digerati by providing access to remote colleagues, resources, and processes that make them effective and keep them engaged. A good start is to create visual, interactive workspaces where distributed teams can collaborate in real-time—merging content, videoconferencing, and the web to accelerate decision making, facilitate product development and expedite time to market. Read Gartner's report on building a digital workplace.
As the workforce demographic shifts to the millennial generation, it is appropriate and logical to embrace its technologies, as well. After all, this technology has transformed our daily lives. Our workplace operations must inevitably keep pace.
How digital is your workplace?