After a fascinating few days chairing Contact Centre Week in Dublin, one always reflects on what new insights to share with colleagues on returning to the ranch.
Yes I loved BT’s Nicola Millard’s entertaining style - futurology and all that stuff. But I would because it’s the same stuff we already do today. It’s more today than tomorrow to be looking at new customer behaviours, blogs and wikis and new operating models for business with feedback built in.
I always love hearing more about first direct, Virgin and any company that bases its customer approach on how it treats its people, on its values. The basics of recognising people as people, and treating them accordingly, just shine through time and again.
But one thing struck a large note of curiosity and that was Virgin talking about generation Y and how they are different to work with. They had a great list of aspirations that went deeper than just what Virgin do, dressing down or dressing up.
So I did a bit of digging – take a look at some of the research into the 3 generations at work today – baby boomers, generation X and generation Y. And how it’s changing work as we know it into “Work 2.0”. Actually the trends just seem to be what we’d all want and reflect what many good businesses have done before anyway. Less patience with poor management or poor development is a good thing. Wanting more gyms and sabbaticals is hardly new.
Perhaps being prepared to stand up and take more risk to get it, this is where the difference lies with generation Y. I can’t help but admire the “balls” of gen Y to go out and get what they want. Well most of them. And not put up with something less, preferring to keep searching rather than do something less than what they want. That’s great if you got an education. And a disaster if you didn’t.
I’ll put away my UK crystal ball at this point as it’s gone a bit dark and nasty. In China and India every gen Y person and their gen X parents or baby boomer parents and grandparents want one thing – the best education you can get.
In some ways th gen Y behaviours are no surprise. I use my daughters as examples of this new generation at every opportunity when talking about customer behaviours. If you’re a student, you don’t knock next door to see who’s going for a drink, you IM them. What’s email when you can talk to several people in real time. If I can’t update my Bebo pages, how will people know that I’m alive?
Of course it left me very confused - being a perennial 18 year old, I can see all 3 sets of behaviours in what I do…..but I didn’t see how I recognise the 3 generations differently at work and manage their motivations differently. So I will look harder in future. Once I’ve understood the differences between men and women, this should be a piece of cake!
