Being in a very unique group bordering the millennial and centennial generations, I was inspired to further investigate the millennial generation in the workforce after recently reading my colleague Cindy Olsson’s blog post. In her post, Olsson focused on the differences that millennial generation holds in their expectations for the workplace in comparison to the expectations held by older generations. As she writes, the values of baby boomers lie mainly in the basic needs towards the bottom of the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs pyramid, whereas in contrast, millennials put greater value on upper ends of the pyramid, the self-actualization, and esteem needs of the workplace. With the growth in technology and differences in values being the main separation between the generations, the main methods of communication between the generations will certainly be affected.
Through my Google investigation, I came across Sarah White’s article where she discussed the workforce generational diversity and the expectations of communication. She wrote that because the workforce is rapidly being mixed with millennials and older generations whose lives have not revolved around digital communication as the former did, communication tension is caused and employers must adapt to ensure that both generational expectations are met.
Although face to face communication is the most direct form of communication, I believe that verbal communication is slowly being phased out by the increasing number of millennials in the workforce. Through digital communication, all communication is being recorded digitally through emails, text messages, and more. This may result in the loss of intimacy in communication with the decline in face to face interaction.
But digital communication may be beneficial for the workplace. The most obvious benefit is the increase in communication speed. It takes a person an average time of 90 seconds to read and respond to a text message[i]. When time is a factor to the success of a company, digital communication hails in comparison to the lengthy times of meeting up for a conversation. In addition to an increase in communication speed, the ability to proofread every sentence before pressing the send button will inevitably increase the accuracy of information. With both the speed and accuracy of communication being essential for maintaining strong organizational behavior and lines of communication, I believe that as a workforce, we will soon see that digital communication will triumph over traditional communication as the main source of communication.
[i] https://onereach.com/blog/45-texting-statistics-that-prove-businesses-need-to-start-taking-sms-seriously/
Word Count: 394
Sources:
- “45 Texting Statistics That Prove Businesses Need to Take SMS Seriously.” OneReach Blog. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2017.
- “Millennials and Their Expectations – Cindy Olsson.” Cindy Olsson. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2017.
- White, Sarah K. “Millennials are shaking up workplace communication.” CIO. CIO, 13 June 2016. Web. 05 Feb. 2017.
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