The Millennial Report: What Comes Next?

The explosive growth of the millennial generation in the workplace is the subject of countless thought pieces, studies and columns—including this one—that strive to help Baby Boomers and beyond learn to cope with the massive 360-degree shift in work behavior exhibited among young professionals. But this past week I got to thinking: If millennials are seen as such a departure from previous generations, what about the generation after that? And how will that group of connected workers communicate differently from the soon-to-be middle-aged millennial generation?

The new wave of connected workers, which is grouped under the awkward moniker of Generation Z, is quickly expanding as millennials grow up, get married, and have children, all of whom are even more technologically proficient than their parents. But instead of growing up in a world where home PCs and laptops are the norm, this generation will only know a world filled with iPads, smartphones and wearables.

“I think it’s a fascinating time in the business communications space because increasingly non-verbal communication, I would argue, is overtaking what I think of as historical voice and video communications,” said Jeff Platon, aid Jeff Platon, CMO of Interactive Intelligence, a global provider of collaboration, communications and customer engagement software and cloud services. “Moreover, they [millennials] are choosing to use different methods and … products like Slack and HipChat that kind of give you different ways to collaborate and communicate in real time that is beginning to, for the first time, put a real dent in time-delayed use of tools like email.”

And with children learning how to use technology earlier than ever before (for proof, see this study says babies as young as six months old can already use tablets and smartphones) many IT companies are just a few years away from hiring these technology super users into full-time positions.

As a millennial in the IT industry, I believe my generation has the perfect mix of knowledge in terms of what technology looked like before the advent of home computers and a solid footing among digital natives. Even though I was very young, I still remember my family’s first computer with a sense of wonderment, and can appreciate how far the tech industry has come by looking back at the many years spent using floppy disks for school projects and firing up AOL with a 56k modem. Yet, I was young enough that despite the wonder of technology, I was able to easily latch on to new ideas and become proficient in the use of social media and incorporate them into my school and work life without any trouble.

That said, the children and teens of Generation Z are already leaps and bounds ahead of my millennial brethren in terms of technological proficiency—many of them view social media as a given, with an uncanny ability to tweet, message and Snapchat to friends without blinking an eye. Put those skills to use in the IT channel, and there’s no telling what the next group of young professionals will be able to do and how they will fundamentally change the way we think as an industry.

Of course, millennials will also have an important role to play in the future of the IT field, first as teachers to older generations and then as mentors to the burgeoning group of Gen Z-ers entering the workforce. By utilizing our understanding and appreciation of how much technology continues to improve our lives tapered with an instinctual knowledge of how to adapt to new methods of communication, we are poised to bridge the gap between the old world and the new.