...brash, impatient, over-confident, ideas above their position. Hear that a lot from managers? There are going to be some very interesting changes in employment over the next ten years or so. (And ten years is the life expectancy of a typical ERP implementation so read on...)
We, as business managers in our forties and fifties started working in a very traditional hierarchical structure. We had not experienced mobile phones, the Internet, home PCs or even satellite TV in our youth. We went to work, started at the bottom, learned the ropes - just as we did at school and college. Our kids are different, and they are growing up and moving into the workplace just about now. They are used to instant access to information, and using the Internet to help with homework projects. They share games on their iPods, swap photos on their mobile phones, chat across the world with Instant Messenger, and think nothing of doing all these things at once.
Hardly surprising then, when we have invested in progressive education to teach them how to think out of the box, work in teams and develop flexible approaches to problem-solving, that these collaborative young people don't find our traditional way of working, with legacy workplace tools, all that helpful. I think they want more, need more, and can give more. Our ideas will have to change, and any business systems they use will have to be as useful to them as their own gadgets are now. It will be well worth adding "Web 2.0" to the features list for your next ERP system, just for starters.
We, as business managers in our forties and fifties started working in a very traditional hierarchical structure. We had not experienced mobile phones, the Internet, home PCs or even satellite TV in our youth. We went to work, started at the bottom, learned the ropes - just as we did at school and college. Our kids are different, and they are growing up and moving into the workplace just about now. They are used to instant access to information, and using the Internet to help with homework projects. They share games on their iPods, swap photos on their mobile phones, chat across the world with Instant Messenger, and think nothing of doing all these things at once.
Hardly surprising then, when we have invested in progressive education to teach them how to think out of the box, work in teams and develop flexible approaches to problem-solving, that these collaborative young people don't find our traditional way of working, with legacy workplace tools, all that helpful. I think they want more, need more, and can give more. Our ideas will have to change, and any business systems they use will have to be as useful to them as their own gadgets are now. It will be well worth adding "Web 2.0" to the features list for your next ERP system, just for starters.
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