A new study suggests many organizations might be squandering the skills, passion and potential of media-savvy workers and will need to take decisive steps before it becomes a major performance inhibiting issue.
by Site Staff
April 4, 2007
Agoura Hills, Calif. — April 4
A new study suggests many organizations might be squandering the skills, passion and potential of media-savvy workers and will need to take decisive steps before it becomes a major performance inhibiting issue.
QuestG Inc.’s Media-Savvy Workforce and Learning Project interviewed and surveyed 3,000 employees from the Global Fortune 1000, defined who they are, how they learn and how they want to be engaged.
Key findings about this fast-growing segment of the workforce include:
- Their population cuts across sex lines and broadly across age lines.
- They are more self-reliant and decisive.
- They are more collaborative, more aware of activity outside their immediate business responsibility, as well as outside their own firms.
- High media-savvy workers of all ages are more engaged by learning and pursue it more aggressively.
- Current corporate learning approaches are missing the mark.
- The workplace experience, in general, is matching low expectations.
- High-media savvy workers, especially those younger than 30, are the most dissatisfied and likely to leave their employers.
- Employers are missing substantial opportunities to leverage the technology skills and acumen of media-savvy workers.
“The report shows that the mindset and the value system of the media-savvy population goes hand in glove with what today’s organizations badly need,” said Dr. Roland Deiser, European Corporate Learning Forum.
Dr. James Paul Gee, Arizona State University, agrees.
“This report makes clear that today’s ‘digital natives’ want their workplaces to incorporate the challenges, rewards and the styles of ongoing, nonstop learning and problem solving that the best video games represent,” he said.
Despite some inroads in using new interactive technologies and collaborative processes, many companies remain trapped by traditional thinking and outdated methods.
The learning and performance strategies that worked in traditional corporate settings are woefully ineffective with the media-savvy knowledge worker.
To catch up, many organizations will need to make serious attempts to understand the media-savvy, who already might be a substantial portion of their high potentials — what motivates them, what they expect in the workplace, what they require to excel at their jobs, how they learn and how interactive media can be used to supercharge their performance.
Harnessing the passion and skills of the media-savvy generation will require significant changes in the mindsets of managers and the culture of corporations.
“Initiatives such as this put a stake in the ground and will be seen as pioneer work,” said Dr. Lynda Gratton, London Business School.