Member Article

IT departments are not ready to cope with Generation C

IT departments are failing to meet expectations, with up to one in five ‘Generation C’ employees considering their company’s IT systems as archaic, unreliable, or too slow. That’s according to a new report from content and information management specialists, infoMENTUM. The report examined the growing IT expectations of over 1000 office workers throughout the UK.

Entitled ‘Generating success with Generation C’, the report considers the role of Gen C as both corporate employees and consumers. Unlike previous generations, the term Gen C does not describe a physical age bracket, but rather a ‘psychographic group’. As ‘digital natives’, they are always connected, always communicating, and, as the research findings suggest, have clear expectations from technology. Globally, most millennials are Gen C, but on average, 39% of Gen C are aged 35 or over – this is a group that makes up a significant percentage of any workforce.

As well as describing corporate IT systems as ‘unreliable’ and ‘awkward’, 45% of Gen C respondents stated that they would judge a company as ‘not innovative’ if its IT systems were poor. Internally, 43.5% of those surveyed agreed that improved technology would help to make their jobs easier. Additionally, a further 20% would even consider leaving a company as a result of subpar technology.

Based on these statistics, without ensuring their internal IT systems meet such high expectations, businesses will continue to fail in their efforts to attract – and maintain - valuable Gen C employees.

When asked how often their organisation’s IT systems were updated, 60% of research respondents thought that upgrades were only being undertaken ‘occasionally’. A further 10% felt that their IT systems were upgraded only when something went wrong, and 3% admitted their current technology has never been updated. This failure to keep IT systems up-to-date has resulted in widespread dissatisfaction amongst the Gen C workforce.

Such dissatisfaction also extends beyond internal IT functions to include external factors such as an organisation’s website. According to infoMENTUM’s findings, 98% of Gen C respondents were either annoyed or dissatisfied with their current website functionality and design. One in five of these individuals also stated that they would judge an organisation based on its website.

“Almost every business will have employees who could be described as Generation C and it’s a fast growing group,” said Vikram Setia, co-founder of infoMENTUM. “This is a creative and dynamic group of people who can be a great asset for any business. However increasingly businesses are side-lining IT departments, viewing them as little more than a team to call upon when something goes wrong. The findings of this report go a long way to prove that an organisation’s IT systems are increasingly vital in ensuring employee satisfaction and attracting the very best talent.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Infomentum .