As boomers struggle to resuscitate their careers and Gen Y millennials flood the workforce, information technology (IT) managers are having to weigh the relative value of traditional and new-age skills.
Throughout busy job fairs, crowded boardrooms and hectic IT departments across the U.S., a battle royal is brewing between aging Baby Boomers and fresh-faced Gen Y millennials---two distinct generations with different work styles, conflicting cultures and disparate skill sets.
On one side stand the boomers: IT veterans valued for their unwavering work ethic, vast experience and institutional memory. Who after watching their retirement savings dwindle and the demand for small side projects disappear, are now motivated to re-enter the workforce.
On the opposing side, the Gen Y millennials: Web 2.0 natives with technology in their DNA who would rather text and Twitter than talk and who have little patience with the way things have always been done.
IT managers are facing a tough predicament: a head-on collision between two vastly talented yet differing generations, both vying for full-time employment in a fast-shrinking economy. Deciding whom to hire--or layoff--requires sorting through a minefield of competing technical expertise, business acumen, cultural preferences and career expectations.
Baby Boomers and Gen Y millennials might have eased by each other in the workplace with no clash at all, as boomers gradually retired and Gen Ys moved in and up the ranks. But a faltering economy changed all that.
Source: COMPUTERWORLD, February 16, 2009