What's Good for a Millennial Isn't Good for a Zoomer Differences Between Generations of IT Employees

Author: Artem Barbakov, HRD of the corporate communications and mobility platform eXpress

In IT, the problem of fathers and children is becoming less and less relevant: specialists of different generations communicate well with each other and complement each other in projects. This happens especially successfully if the company has established mentoring and knowledge sharing processes. However, when forming teams of different ages, it is important to remember that representatives of different generations will have different ways of perceiving new things, learning speed, and attitudes toward the work process.

How IT professionals of different generations differ

Willingness to master new things. Trending technologies in the IT industry are used by specialists of all ages, but young people are more open to innovations. Moreover, a junior who joins a company immediately starts working with the current stack, while the older generation has to retrain and improve their skills. A zoomer may also need retraining, but it will be easier for him than for his more experienced colleague.

Of course, there is always work for conservatively minded specialists – someone has to support products based on, for example, previous versions of Java. Zoomers are usually not interested in such tasks, but those who are not ready to understand updates will take them on with enthusiasm.

Speed of career growth. For the older generation, it seems natural to study long and fundamentally: take six-month courses or even get a second degree, and then use the new knowledge. For young people, meetups for an hour or two, constant networking and developmental feedback are more relevant. Zoomers know how to squeeze the essence out of information and immediately begin to apply it in practice. In the moment, this is very effective: in the third or fourth year, a university student can very quickly build up competencies in narrow areas on top of the fundamental base.

Because of this, zoomers' growth in grades is more active. Where older colleagues spent 3-5 years to reach a grade, young people take 1-2 years - simply because they have different learning methods.

Another reason why zoomers are making their careers faster is the shortage of IT personnel. There are quite a lot of “juniors” on the market, but there is a shortage of “middles” and “seniors”. Managers have to delegate tasks to young specialists that are designed for more experienced experts. The forced increase in the complexity of the duties performed entails rapid development.

Attitude to work. For young professionals, work is just one element of life, often not the most important one. Work-life balance is extremely important to Zoomers. They value the opportunities for remote or hybrid work, flexible start of the day and vacation schedule that modern companies provide. Let's say that a Zoomer can go out for lunch and not return to the office for the second part of the working day, but a millennial is unlikely to do this.

For the older generation, work is a duty and responsibility. Millennials find it easier to do painstaking work, they immerse themselves in processes and products with greater dedication. The balance between work and personal time is something mythical for them, both for ordinary employees and for top managers.

Read more materials on this topic in Compass CIO

Understanding corporate culture. For the older generation, corporate culture is always associated with the concepts of loyalty and reputation. For younger workers, the company's social responsibility, impact on the environment and ecology play a huge role.

As a result, motivation to work differs significantly among different generations. For older employees, motivation is material, they care about salary, bonuses, and voluntary health insurance. Zoomers have mixed motivation, they can’t always be motivated by finances alone.

Degree of trust in AI. In terms of personnel costs, it is becoming increasingly efficient for businesses to replace human labor with automation tools. The transition to AI assistants is the next step in this process. Basic code elements can absolutely be generated by AI, although control over the operation of neural networks is necessary, and it should be performed by a person with a good technical background.

As a rule, the older the programmer, the more negative he is about programming with neural networks, and this is understandable. Let's say he spent 20 years learning to program at a high level. And now the reality is that a junior third-year student can show a result comparable to an expert's with the help of AI, and this does not inspire confidence.

On the other hand, the older generation is more careful about content generation by neural networks, and this is a positive moment for business, since the uncontrolled use of AI and “feeding” neural networks with personal and confidential data is a direct threat to information security.

What is important for IT professionals regardless of age

Convenient and secure communication tools. The communication format is shifting: not so long ago, the main tool was e-mail, now it is being replaced by corporate messengers as secure means of communication. Messengers are convenient for everyone, starting with generation X, which once used the legendary "ICQ". And only the most senior employees still prefer to send everything important by e-mail.

The more informal, flexible and effective the company's communication tools are, the easier it will be for all generations. The exception, again, is boomer generation specialists. They find it much harder than the next generations to use frivolous communication formats and remote interaction. Therefore, if the company has older specialists, you should not forcefully involve them in new communication models.

The ability to choose the work format. When persistently inviting a millennial or zoomer to the office who copes well with their tasks remotely, you need to decide whether it is really impossible to do without it. An information systems architect who was transferred from remote work to a noisy open space will most likely reduce efficiency and quickly burn out. Remember: when companies began to return employees to the office after the pandemic, the level of negativity towards employers increased sharply. The winners were the companies that left remote work as one of their advantages. And vice versa, when transferring to remote work, you need to make sure that specialists retain all the opportunities to perform work that they had in the office.

Clear career growth trajectories. An employee of any generation appreciates being trusted and given the opportunity to move up the career ladder. For example, to fill a team leader vacancy, you can rotate an internal specialist. And even if he still has to gain knowledge and experience to the required level, in general he will cope. Or you can hire a new person who is already ready for the position, but does not know the corporate culture of the company from the inside. Naturally, if others on the team see the career growth of their colleagues, and not newcomers who came from the outside, their loyalty is higher. In many companies, career tracks are visualized, and specialists of any age know about their prospects.

What awaits the Alpha generation

In less than 10 years, the Alpha generation will enter the market. It can be assumed that Alphas will acquire new knowledge and skills even more quickly and proactively. Today's schoolchildren are already writing reports using artificial intelligence, not libraries or even search engines.

At the same time, there are concerns that the trend towards work-life balance will increasingly shift the focus towards “life”. For example, Alphas will complete work faster, but will want to rest more.

As Alphas begin to join established teams, HR managers will need a fair amount of flexibility to motivate them to work responsibly and to the required extent. Businesses may want to invest mentors' time and resources only in promising young people, which will tighten the selection process for open positions. But if Alphas are successfully integrated into mixed-age teams, businesses will receive employees who are able to master innovations as quickly and organically as possible, and will benefit.