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Understanding the Millennial generation of workers

According to statistics from the Cisco Connected World Technology Report, the youth of today will make up 75% of the workforce by 2025. Because of this figure, there is a growing body of research that aims to understand this Millennial generation.
Kay Vittee
Kay Vittee

"We need to know how best to recruit, manage, train and retain this new generation because in just a few years, they will be at the helm of business," says Kay Vittee, CEO of Quest Staffing Solutions. "If we want them to be successful leaders in the future, we need to be able to understand and connect with them now so that we can equip them with the right tools to do well."

Self-branding and remote access

"The Millennials know that they are so much more than words on a CV and so they have taken to seeing themselves as a brand and marketing themselves as such," explains Vittee. Through multimedia such as online videos, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media platforms, Millennials showcase who they are, what they can do and their achievements. "Their intention is to attract companies to them."

"For the Millennials, flexibility of time and place to work is key, with 70% believing it is unnecessary to be in a certain office for a certain time period. In fact, they feel they have a right to work remotely," says the CEO. This attitude is influencing the other generations with an increase of 9% across all age groups who want to be allowed to work from home.

Vittee continues, "There can be no doubt that this generation loves their gadgets and with their attitude towards flexible working conditions, 80% want to be able to choose the devices they receive from work." However, they want to be able to use these work devices for personal functions as well as allowing them to access company information or the office network remotely.

"For the Millennial generation, it is all about freedom. They want to be free to promote themselves in a way that will make them most appealing to potential employers, they want the freedom to work when and where they are most productive, and they want the technology that will give them this freedom. More importantly, they want to integrate their personal lives with their work lives," says Vittee.

For more information, go to www.quest.co.za.

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