Harnessing the Potential of Digital Post-millennials in the Future Workplace

This book offers strategic leaders with essential information for their most important role:  the change management function of positioning the organization for success into the future. To do so, leaders need to sort through a myriad of forecasts, predictions and weak indicators of change to make timely decisions. This volume addresses the most critical factor for future success: people and, specifically, harnessing the potential the current youth cohort will bring when they join the full-time workforce. 

Drawing on multi-disciplinary analyses by 37 researchers, the book presents an integrative assessment of the characteristics that those in the current youth cohort are likely to bring to the workplace. The focus is on those born after 2005 with an examination of the implications of this cohort being raised from birth immersed in an increasingly omnipresent digital environment which extends far beyond social media. The authors see the coming ‘digital tsunami’ as creating disruptive effects across major elements of our economy and even society however optimistically conclude that the digital environment and the development of 21^st Century skills in schools will equip the next generation with essential competencies, attitudes, social skills and work goals. The key to harnessing the potential of this generation will be to modify current human resources and workplace practices which will mean sweeping away much of the ‘boomer’ legacy that this cohort has imprinted on organizations. To assist leaders, the book goes beyond presenting a rich portrait of who these youth may become by providing practical recommendations for the changes that need to start now in order to position the organization to benefit from what they will bring. As the astute strategic leader knows: objects in the future can be closer than they appear. 

Alan Okros has a professional and academic career spanning 47 years. As a military human resources (HR) professional, he has extensive experience developing HR policies, programs and processes. As a military researcher, he has conducted conceptual and applied research across a wide range of personnel issues with over 50 internal military research reports. He also led a team that produced a comprehensive overhaul of the Canadian military approach to leadership and has shared this work with military, government and corporate leaders across Canada and in over 20 countries. As an academic, he has published volumes, book chapters and journal articles as well as conference papers on personnel issues including diversity, youth cohort analyses and leadership topics. As a faculty member, he teaches graduate level strategic leadership to senior military and public service leaders from Canada and a range of international militaries. 

This volume is the product of a three-year research project involving 35 scientists, academics and graduate students; the fourth time Dr Okros has led a large, multi-disciplinary team.