After our class on Organization Behavior and HR, I started to wonder about the different aspects of sustaining a corporate culture. With the 80s and 90s taking over the workforce, will managers need to restructure the way their companies had always been ran. After a quick search, the answer is “Definitely Yes”. An article with many interesting statistical figures showed that 60% of Millennials are leaving their companies within 3 years. 87% of companies reported high costs of replacing employees within the past recent years. Which leads us to the ultimate question: what could be change to keep these aspiring and intelligent yet demanding young individuals?

Understanding Millennials: The emphasis of Zappa is keeping work environment enjoyable. The best way to do that is blurring the lines between everything, you and them, between work and personal, between individual and group, between face-to-face and electronic, between inspiring and enabling. We’re living in a world where are no alphabets such as A, B, C, but rather AB, CA, or ABC. 

Reverse-Mentoring: Simply put, it’s a rising practice in corporations where young subordinates get to mentor their boss. I this fast-paced working environment with technology dominating the world, fresh perspectives offered from the twenties are just as important as experiences from the fifties. I think this is a wonderful program and boost young employees’ confidence and make them feel more appreciated, thus contributing more than expected to the company.

Moral of the Story? “Moderation is Key” :)

Honestly, I was never a worshipper of technology. I am thankful for Skype which allow me to talk to my family in Vietnam, and for Facebook to keep me updated on people I care about. But that’s a about it. In the class Business Management Performance, we briefly touched on how technology became one of the greatest means for a company to create brand awareness and leverage relationship with its customers. I started to question, sure there are many positive effects in using social media, but what about the negative consequences when it’s not used properly?

The two most easy-to-see negative sides of social media is lack of control over content and unpredictable schedule. With the easy tools on Facebook such as like, share, and comment, anyone is welcome to make use of these resources in whatever way they want. They can write bad reviews about a restaurant, or share a post in a mocking way. Not to mention, when social media is pervading the workplace, it could possibly reduce workers’ efficiency. In order to fix this problem, employers should absolutely take steps to create an effective social media policy.

I am slowly accepting that social media has progressed from an accessory to a necessary, yet I still believe there should be a certain limit to how it is used. Social media certainly increases convenience and efficiency, but probably not yet in enhancing personal connections. After all, who doesn’t treasure a hand-written letter more than an e-card?