Millennials aren’t just consumers – they’re also the future decision-makers and purchasers of enterprise IT. By 2025, three in every four working adults will belong to this generation, and they’ll expect far different collaboration tools and infrastructure than their predecessors. How can IT providers update their products and services to meet those needs?
First of all, let’s consider what those needs really look like. Plantronics’ research recently found that more than 60% of millenials have embraced flexible working practices – a significant, but not overwhelmingly large number. Higher flexibility also appears to result in higher degrees of loyalty to the business, as well as a greater sense of personal responsibility. In workplace with high levels of flexible working, 34% of millennials take a “great deal” of personal accountability, compared to just 12% in more rigid enterprises.
In other words, millennials want more power over how they work and communicate with others, but they’re also keen to accept the greater responsibility that comes with this freedom. So far, most collaboration technologies have focused on simply untethering millennials from the office, rather than supporting that desire for accountability that underpins how millennials work. Perhaps that’s why 71% of millennials feel challenged by the collaboration tools currently on offer.
All that will change as more and more millennials come to occupy decision-making roles. The question is: are IT providers ready to give these new leaders what they want?
Focus on performance, not flexibility
Collaboration technologies need to extend beyond simple mobility and freedom of location. Every millennial already has the mobile devices and platforms they need to get work done: just consider how prevalent OTT messaging (WhatsApp) and VoIP (Skype) have become in everyday business. For most millennial workers, the question isn’t one of access, but effectiveness. These consumer platforms weren’t designed for the search, reporting, and tracking that business communications require.
IT providers can fill this gap by providing solutions that combine the best of both worlds. On the one hand, they’ll need to offer the flexibility and mobility that millennials consider the norm. That’ll involve SaaS applications, mobile devices or containers, and other platforms that most smart channel partners will already be well-versed in.
On the other, they’ll need to add in enterprise-grade visibility and performance monitoring: data management tools, analytics engines, and reporting functions that span the entire collaborative process. By doing so, they’ll be able to meet that millennial desire for accountability and constant improvement to how they work. That’ll prove especially valuable to millennial leaders who have grown up working flexibly – and know how productive it is – but now need to take responsibility for efficiency and ROI on a far larger scale.
Perhaps most importantly, collaboration technologies will need to support all forms of working – including the traditional office. Our findings suggest that a significant minority of millennials still see benefit in a fixed, infrastructure-heavy working location, and that will likely stay true for numerous industries where the needs for compliance, responsiveness, and sheer processing power simply won’t translate into a 100%-mobile workforce. The most successful collaborative platforms will not just give millennial leaders the insight into how to improve their teams’ performance, but also support all different types of workspace configurations – both mobile and traditional.
Millennials care more about how well they do their work than where or when they do it. That’s a fundamental truth which many IT providers tend to miss when desigining their collaborative solutions – and one which older business leaders have also struggled to grasp. By focusing on performance rather than place or time of work, we can give millennial leaders the tools they need to stay not only flexible and agile, but accountable and effective in how they create the future of work.
To learn more about flexible work styles and how to design a successful collaboration strategy for tomorrow’s talent, visit plantronics.com/mobility.