Are You Ready for the Digital Natives – How Millennials are Changing the Workplace

What are “Digital Natives?” Digital natives are a generation born into the digital technology age. While other generations (digital immigrants) remember organizing, planning and connecting with each other without mobile devices, computers or the Internet, Digital Natives have been using these technologies and the cloud since their birth.

As employees, employers, and consumers, we will all be affected by the digital natives joining and collaborating with the digital immigrants. The impact on organizations and those managing global teams will be enormous. We should be eager and willing to understand how to support future generations of mobile cloud-based employees.

The Challenge of Staying Up-To-Date

One of the biggest challenges in modern society and business is the sheer pace of change. We will more often than not use technology at home and on the move in our private life that is far more modern and advanced than what we have in the workplace.

It is easy to imagine the digital native’s frustration when their workplace has outdated and archaic technology and workflow systems on paper and excel. This makes no sense to them, especially when they know that they can be working in a much smarter way - collaborating with their colleagues dynamically and in real time!

In a world where consumer technology has excelled, and enterprise technology has somewhat limped along with little or no investment, employees struggle to grasp why corporate technology, policies, and controls prevent them from unleashing the potential of technology in the very place they are paid to be productive, the workplace.

Flexibility is More Important than Ever

You may have heard the term 'googlesque,' well, Google is not alone with creating fantastic, flexible and fun working environments for the digital natives they employ, enabling them to capture the best talent emerging into this new technologically advanced world of work.

The digital natives have no memory of life before Wi-Fi, mobile apps, the cloud, and mobile working, so they expect to be able to work where they want - when they want - and how they want. It’s not entitlement, it’s a new perspective.  If you cannot offer such environments and tools, then you risk losing the opportunity to hire some of the brightest minds compared to companies that do. Of course, not all of these conditions are feasible in all industries, but the risk of falling behind is undoubtedly there.

Staying up-to-date with your digital asset management solution is essential when building operations processes for your creative teams. Learn how to select the right DAM software in order to maximize the productivity and effectiveness of their creative operations in our free digital guide: Future-Proofing Your Digital Asset Management & Creative Production.