It’s a Generation Y Takeover! Younger Employees Are Changing the Work Place

The standard 9-5 workday has been customary for decades, but it looks like all that could soon change thanks to the demands of a whole new generation of younger workers. And that’s not all they want.

Since this group of so-called Gen Y’ers born between 1982 and 1993 will comprise 75 percent of the global workforce by 2025, companies are increasingly creating workplace-flexibility programs to increase their odds of attracting the best employees.

What do these workers want? Mainly, flexible hours and more telecommuting options. In fact, a study by Mom Corps found more than a third of Gen Y workers would take a pay cut if it meant more flexibility on the job.

While many companies currently ban the use of social media on the job, they may have to relax those rules, too. Cisco’s Connected World Technology report shows that more than half of Gen Y employees prioritize social-media freedom over a higher salary when evaluating a job offer.

Overall, the way we work now — or least probably will in the very near future — won’t be the way our parents worked. But it doesn’t mean we’ll be working less. Technology means many of us are never really off the clock.

That said, working only during defined hours may soon become extinct, said Maryella Gockel, a flexibility-strategy leader at Ernst & Young, adding, “This notion of an eight-hour day is rapidly disappearing, simply because we work so virtually and globally.”

[Time]