For the past several years, McDaniel Partners has been consumed with helping companies successfully deal with three generations toiling together in the workforce – the Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y. We have focused on what engages employees across Generations and how companies can build environments that leverage the unique attributes of all Generations.  

This blog is focused on the next Generation – Generation Z and how their experiences will impact the workplace and world around them. Generation Z has also been referred to as – the dotcom kids, the iGeneration, the Digital Generation, and the Google Generation.

Why are we focused on Generation Z? These are today’s children and students (aged 14 and younger) and tomorrow’s employees and leaders. These children have been brought up in front of The Wiggles, Dora the Explorer, Backugan, iCarly.com, Hannah Montana, the Jonas Brothers, and American Idol. They have immersed themselves in the world of Harry Potter and now Twilight. They have been shaped by events like 9/11, the war in Iraq, global climate change, the election of Barack Obama, the global economic downturn and other events that we all have yet to experience.

This is a Generation that has never known a world without computers, the Internet, cell phones or social networking. They have grown up with televisions in their rooms, video games and computers. They either have or want iPods, Game Boys, Wii, MP3 players, and cell phones. They do their projects on computers, actively use Google, SparkNotes and leverage PowerPoint to make slick presentations for school. They have grown up on gaming and entertainment sites like WebKinz, Club Penguin, CoolMath, Miniclips, and Lego.com. They are increasingly leveraging Facebook, MySpace and Twitter to stay connected and to keep a public and very personal diary of their lives as they unfold.

This blog will examine the impact that Generation Z will have on the world and the workplace. It will provide a personalized view of this Generation from through input from kids that were born after 1995. We look forward to watching this Generation unfold….looking more closely at the issues that are impacting this next Generation of kids!