How to View Your Company Through a Digital Native’s Eyes
Scott Snyder, a senior
fellow at Wharton’s Mack Institute
for Innovation Management, and
Morgan S. Snyder, a software engineer with Palantir, a software and
services company which specializes in big data analysis, are the authors of
this opinion piece on how companies need to shift their thinking if they want
to understand millennials — as customers and as employees.
We asked digital natives to share their perspectives on large
companies as both consumers and employees, and this article reflects what we
learned.
Who Are We?
They call us millennials and Gen Z. We are over 140
million strong, represent 25% of the workforce, nearly $2 trilllion of buying
power, even though over 60% of us still live at home. We are politically
liberal leaning and the most diverse generation by far. We don’t read the
newspaper, listen to the radio, watch network TV, or use a home phone number.
We spend a lot of time online, building our digital network and consuming
information from it. Unfortunately, due to fewer opportunities and record
levels of student debt, we probably won’t have our own car or house for a long
time (and maybe never). If you run a company and want us to love your brand or
even work for you someday.
We Are Networked
Smartphones are an extra appendage for us. Through the screen in
the palm of our hand, we lead networked lives driven by immediate
gratification.
“Due to fewer
opportunities and record levels of student debt, we probably won’t have our own
car or house for a long time.”
We know how to get the information we need and have unlimited
access to it through Google. With this wealth of competing information, it’s
rare for something to hold our attention for more than 10 seconds.
We continuously connect with friends through text, share our
creations, log our lives, control our entertainment, order food, find a ride
and plan our next adventures on our phones. We want all of the things in our
life to be easy to access through our phones, from our banking to our dating
life. We prefer purchasing products online; it’s a plus if we can subscribe to
the product, so the box automatically arrives at our door every month. If it
can be avoided, we’d rather not check out with a physical cashier or call
someone for services. Our phones are a one-stop shop for entertainment, and are
the only device we need to consume our favorite music videos and Netflix
series.
We spend time curating our digital identity and network on
social media platforms, even though we don’t trust them to keep our information
safe. We like the immediacy and control of Snapchat and Instagram but are less
enthusiastic about Facebook, which is becoming too corporate and feels corrupt
after the Cambridge Analytica breach. Our friends from China run their lives
through WeChat. We trust our friends and their friends, over corporations,
especially when it comes to news. Some of the news you see on Huffington Post
or Buzzfeed has turned out to be fake, so why bother unless it’s for sheer entertainment?
Our inner circle of friends points us to information worth knowing and news
stories worth reading. They are also our main source of affirmation when we
need to make a big purchasing decision like buying a bike or traveling to a
foreign country — we just take a photo and post it to our group to get
opinions.
We Are Mobile
Since we grew up connected via our screens, we are great at
creating things (pictures, videos, code, narratives) on the move, wherever we
are, and now companies are starting to pay for it. Some of us make money as
part-time designers, artists, journalists, coders and even gamers. The Gig
Economy doesn’t scare us; we love the freedom, though the prospect of not
having full benefits is starting to sink in as we see our debt pile on and
friends deal with real health concerns. We assume we’ll hold more than 10
different jobs over our lifetime, and some at the same time. Change and
mobility are constants for us, so don’t expect us to stay in one place for long.
We know that what seems like a good major or career now, may not
be in the next few years. Our friends who studied math and physics are killing
it as data scientists with companies like Google and Facebook, even though they
would have been pigeonholed to become a professor a decade ago. Even our
friends who studied engineering have titles we never heard of in college, like
growth hacker, design technologist, forward-deployed engineer. But it feels
like titles matter less and less, as we seek out hybrid roles that allow us to
wear many hats.
We hope to live in two or three different countries over the
course of our life and spend most of our time in cities. We spend money on
experiences, over material things. While we love the outdoors and extreme
sports like rock climbing, kite surfing and adventure racing, we want to work
and live in cities where everything is a walk, bike or Lyft ride away —
including where we work. And if we can’t live in the city, then put us in the
mountains or at the beach. Anything but the burbs.
We Are Woke
We see major issues in the world around us but believe we have
the power to move the needle. We are not afraid to speak up if we see something
wrong with the status quo, and our online networks affirm our opinions and
reward outspokenness. We expect the politicians, celebrities, athletes and CEOs
whom we follow to weigh in on important issues like immigration, sexual assault
in the workplace, racial discrimination and climate change. We are acutely
aware of the power and influence that our individual online presence can have.
We’ve witnessed massive movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo create
change in our lifetime, many starting and spreading online. We even saw the
Diversify my Emoji movement change a critical component of our digital
language. We yearn to be part of efforts that make our world more inclusive,
accepting, socially and environmentally responsible. We hold ourselves, our friends
and leaders accountable to this end and constantly wonder what good we could be
doing and how we could do more.
We peg most big companies as being interested in profits at the
expense of people or the planet. It seems like every day we hear about another
discrimination case, privacy breach or environmental disaster that was caused
by the negligence of a large corporation. If their CEO would speak candidly
about the problem and planned solution, it would make a difference for me and
my friends in choosing to do business with them. We don’t see it as difficult
for companies to be both fiscally and socially responsible. We see examples of
big companies doing good with Patagonia preventing deforestation, Warby Parker
improving a global health issue, and IKEA pushing hiring diversity and
inclusion. In our eyes, it should be the standard for organizations with power
to try give back more than they take. In spite of our critiques, there is a
good chance we will end up spending half our careers working for big
organizations including corporations, large non-profits or government agencies.
Our Suggestions
If you want us to be your future customers and employees, here
are some suggestions:
Encourage exploration –
Job hopping used to be a negative term, but we like it. Companies lost $30
billion from regrettable attrition of our generation last year. The chance to
take a job with a big company but know you have the option to try three or four
different tracks in a few years is really appealing. We believe this could also
be good for the company to create a more flexible workforce. As consumers, we
appreciate products that furnish us with new experiences, by constantly
reinventing themselves and us in turn. There is too much noise in our lives to
pay attention to products that are redundant or no longer relevant – onto the
next thing!
Let us lead – Most of us want
to lead something (a team at work, a fund-drive for an important cause, or our
own company), but no one has taught us to really lead in adversity. Most of the
best leaders have failed a bunch of times, especially entrepreneurs. How do we
deal with this, and get teams to follow us and believe in us when things aren’t
going well? We want people to respect us for our beliefs and accomplishments,
not just a big title. We want to be trendsetters and activists. We are open to
personal coaching, but not pedantic lectures. Don’t hand us a business
book that we won’t read. For us to pick up a book, it has to speak to our
emotions. Help us lead by talking to us on a personal level.
Stand for something –
We think money is something you should earn if you do things that matter.
Unfortunately, the world is not set up that way today. But if you want our
input and help to make your business better (and we think we have a lot to
offer), then you need to get out of the mindset of making money first and start
thinking about making an impact and treating people fairly, no matter where
they come from. We are ready to get on board and would love to be part of
building something special.
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/viewing-your-company-through-a-digital-natives-eyes/?utm_source=kw_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2018-05-11
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