Preparing Your Organisation for the iGen Employee

The Generation

iGen, also known as Generation Z, refers to that generation which comes immediately after the Millennial Generation. The Millennial Generation has now generally come to be accepted, for purposes of consumer, economic or labour analysis, as the age group born from the year 1980 to the year 2000, the cusp period leading to the current millennium, currently aged between 15 and 35, hitting full maturity as a generation  in 2021. The iGen therefore, acceptably refers to the age group born from 2001 to the present, with the oldest members being 14 today, just barely over the age limit for Facebook usage.

Why does it Matter?

With adulthood, with 21 years of age as a marker, seven years away from now, in 2022, for the iGen, one may question the timeliness of the subject of the iGen employee in 2015. However, 2015 is nearing it's end, 2022 itself should not count as it is the year of arrival, which leaves us with five years, the standard acceptable period for considerations of long-term planning. And we do work today, effectively, for results tomorrow. And when it comes to organisational survival and growth, with an organisation after all being the sum of it's constantly changing people, a five year head start for consideration of factors such as generational change, is reasonable. Especially since the impending generational change, is likely to bring about unprecedented impacts.

The Difference

Like the Millennial generation, the iGen is unlike any preceding. The difference between iGen and the Millennial though, is likely to surpass by multi-fold in comparison to the differences between the Millennial and any other generation represented in the workforce over the past decade and a half.

While the Millennial generation grew up with the transition into the age of the internet, and from the Information Age into the Innovation Age, the iGen was born after the worldwide web became commonplace, with access through mobile devices in the hands of commoners around the world. While the average Millennial individual grew up on junk food, the average iGen individual is growing up on information.

The Millennial has played the most significant role in defining the transition to the Innovation Age. The iGen is set to bring about the zenith and apex of the Innovation Age, leading it for decades ahead as far as may be empirically foreseen from the present point.

The Characteristics

Incomparably better informed, more Technologically Savvy, exceedingly independent and uninhibited in expressing their thoughts than any generation before them, iGen employees will be a force to be reckoned with. While this is a generation that is being predicted by some as the complacent generation for it is inheriting a world with so many obstacles to acquisition of knowledge and comforts already overcome with technological progress, a credible Futurist would rather anticipate this generation to be one with the sharp eye for redundancy and obsolescence in processes and the strength of mind to do something about them.

What to Expect?

The iGen should not be expected to be satisfied with anything the way it is found, but rather should be expected to desire to "fix" everything. By "fix", one should expect attempts at replacing and supplanting. The mantra for the iGen worker will likely be; Quicker, Easier, Simpler and Smoother. 

Growing up expressing thought and interacting more online or through electronic channels rather than at the playgrounds, iGen individuals will probably come across as brutal even to the Millennials when it comes to dialogue and discussion. Curt, direct, to the point, is what should generally be expected. The Millennial generation is an impatient one. The iGen, is one with far less patience. It is growing up to be all about logic and pragmatism. They will want answers to everything, instantly. They are after all growing up with ever evolving Google and Wikipedia, so can you blame them? And question everything, they will.

Rather than comply and conform to workplaces or organisations that will not adapt to them, iGen workers are likely to walk out without much consideration for consequences to either find other organisations that will accommodate their needs for evolution (and to be heard in regards to which) or will create the ones where their wills will prevail, to replace or render redundant existing ones.

The Challenges

Firstly, how will Generation X, the Millennials and the iGen coexist in the same office or organisation is a critical question to address. The mindset and working styles of Generation X and the Millennial generation are contrasting enough, quite visibly across organisations around the world. The generation gap between the Millennial and iGen is so wide, that it has never been fathomed before between generation, in any academic or function discipline, in history.

Secondly, the iGen individuals will be such (most probably), that they could only be driven by their own intrinsic motivations, which will be hard to read or analyse. Trying to Motivate them by efforts external to themselves may be futile.

Thirdly, with an unending hunger for knowledge and information, the iGen employee will not need Coaching as much as he will demand it, with unprecedented expectations of that process. An organisation's failure to meet that expectation could, or probably will rather, result in excruciating frustration for the iGen employee, enough to see a departure. An illustration of the mindset is such: "If I can't learn what I need to, it is an impediment to my future, therefore, I should not be wasting my time by being here."

Fourthly, life will always be literally about learning and growing for the iGen. Work will not have place in the iGen life. Work will merely be a cog in the process of knowledge acquisition, self-empowerment and self-actualisation. Life will be a constant never ending learning institution from which one never graduates, and any organisation that pays a salary after university, will just be another level of learning pursuit. The Learning & Development offering of an organisation therefore, will be as important as the monetary compensation if not more. The mindset of the iGen can be illustrated here as: "Money, I can make in many other ways, in many other places." With the world constantly transforming and evolving over the next few decades, much thanks to the iGen itself, meeting the Learning & Development demands and needs of the iGen worker will be an unprecedented challenge in itself.

Fifthly, once an iGen worker feels he or she has learnt enough and done enough in one location, the urge will be there as a nature, to move on to somewhere else, where something else can be acquired or created. There will be no such thing as a permanent iGen employee. Retention will become history with this new generation.

Some Tips

Most organisations, even today, remain largely change averse in true practice. To gain the most from the iGen worker, apart from also coping with the iGen worker, organisations that wish to survive past the iGen should work towards becoming change adaptive. Remember, in the Innovation Age, innovation will ultimately be the day to day norm. To survive in the Innovation Age, individuals and organisations will have to embrace that fact. Everything will be innovated and re-innovated. Be welcoming towards that reality and the generation that brings about that reality. Resistance after all, is futile.

Foresight oriented Human Resource Management practices will help organisations position themselves to be able to develop, structure and manage Learning & Development processes that can nimbly be adapted to constant changes in the decades ahead, while preparing current generation of employees to cope with future iGen colleagues and also be ready to see to the Knowledge & Learning needs of those new colleagues.

The world is moving from an Employee-Society to an Entrepreneur-Society for a multitude of intertwining reasons, such as an unending cycle of economic turbulence, changing economic needs, a disillusioned generation with higher capabilities coupled with expectations and so on. The iGen will push this shift further. Less than need driven though, the push with the iGen will be desire driven, with a multitude of factors unique to the generation in their intertwining dynamics. Recruiting iGen employees would also significantly be feeding those dynamics as well as convincing them to be employees rather than entrepreneurs. One way to do this, is to create an Intrapreneurship culture, where employees are less followers and more Intrapreneurs who create, initiate and innovate. This would create an attractive balance, serving the organisation's long-term needs as well.

Harish Shah is Singapore's first local born Professional Futurist and a Management Strategy Consultant. He runs Stratserv Consultancy. His areas of consulting include Strategic Foresight, Systems Thinking and Organisational Future Proofing. You may contact him to find out more about Generational Change or the implications of the emerging iGen.