3 On Your Side: Many Millennials Would Quit If Not Allowed To Do Personal Tasks At Work
By Jim Donovan
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Many millennials have never known a world without mobile devices. Now employers are forced to deal with younger workers who want to be able to text and use social media on the job. 3 On Your Side Consumer Reporter Jim Donovan looks at how this group is blurring the lines between work time and personal time.
Twenty-five-year-old Jonathan Perez always has his smartphone by his side at work. He says it makes juggling his job and his personal life easier. In fact, younger workers have spent most of their life with mobile technology at their fingertips and according to a new survey from MobilIron most don't want to stop texting or using social media at work. Sixty percent of workers 18-34 say if their boss prevented them from using a mobile device to take care of personal tasks, they would quit!
Ojas Rege, Vice President of Strategy of MobileIron says, "Any employer that is looking to recruit this next generation of work force is absolutely going to have to understand these trends and respond to them. Otherwise they are going to lose the best employees of the future."
The company where Jonathan Perez works, analytics firm AD 60, is adapting to this new reality. Managing Partner Alex Matjanec lets employees use their devices but regulates how much. He says, "I think there is a cultural shift needed to allow this technology to be ingrained into your workforce, but how do you control that in a way that's going to drive productivity is the learning experience we are going through right now." Matjanec says his workers are mostly allowed to work on their own terms as long as they get all their work done.
There's even a name for this. It's called "shadow tasking". It's when you use your technology, your cell phone, iPad etc. to conduct personal business during work hours, or work business on your time off. About two-thirds of those surveyed say they've felt guilty for doing it at one time or another.
