Digital natives enter the workplace - Presentation at the 2008 Association of Business Psychologists annual conference
15/05/2008
Alan Redman, Director of Criterion Partnership Ltd, delivered a thought-leading presentation to the Association of Business Psychologists on May 10th 2008. The session encouraged the group to prepare for the next generation of employees now entering the workplace on the tail end of Generation Y.
Alan explored the nature of this emerging generation of Digital Natives and the thinking of educationalists and marketeers who have developed approaches to respond to the needs and values of this new group over the last 10 years.
Alan argued that the group is now reaching employment age and it is employers and the business psychologists who work for them who will have to adapt current and future interventions to meet the distinct demands that Digital Natives will place on their recruitment, employment and development processes.
“Digital Natives were born into the digital age and know nothing other than a life enabled by the Internet, mobile and wireless communication and social networking activities”, Alan told the audience. “Business Psychologists and their clients will need to learn this new digital language and incorporate into their people processes to reach out to both existing workers and this new generation”.
In a lighter part of the presentation Alan invited the audience to complete a short test to discover whether they were digital natives or digital immigrants. If you'd like to take the same test please contact us. A link to the presentation slides is on the right of this page.