Worker bee 2.0

The Generation Y crowd also has a different take on what it means to be an employee. While their parents may be company loyalists willing to put in long hours or pack up and move for the good of the business, not so for Generation Y.

These young people have seen firsthand the physical and emotional damage that working long hours can have on family life and health, say human resource experts. They also came of age witnessing the trauma of corporate downsizing and the outsourcing of technology-oriented positions to low-cost labor regions like India.

The new generation, therefore, is a lot less willing to bend to corporate politics and policies and has a certain air of entitlement when it comes to employment.

Generation Y, for instance, expects to be handed state-of-the-art technology (read: smart phone, laptop and wireless) as soon as they come on board, and they are less willing to start at the bottom rung and work their way up the corporate ladder.

"Generation Y is interested in wrangling their way through an organization, testing the waters and moving here or there if it so suits them," explains Jeff Alderton, principal for human capital at Deloitte Consulting. "They're eventually going to get where they want to go, but in their way, not in the traditional fashion."

The new generation is also far bolder in asking for entitlements, whether it's a pay raise, training on the company's dime or simply time off. "They ask questions I never would have asked," says Mark Banks, vice president of human resources at Sciele Pharma, an Atlanta-based pharmaceuticals company. "It's not about what they can do for you, but what as a company can you do to develop them."

One of the primary concerns of Generation Y is a flexible schedule and healthy work/life balance. This is a generation raised in the era of 24/7 connectivity, of wireless access and of being able to work wherever and whenever it suits them. The idea of trading in that flexibility for a structured workplace doesn't sit well with them.

Technology, they reason, is the enabler for letting people get their work done independently, without having to be in a certain place for a certain period of time.

"We have different expectations about what a work environment should be like," says Dodge. "I think a lot of us hope the age of the daily commute, the 9-to-5 workday and the cubicle farm are in the past. Certainly, with new technology, there is less of a need for the centralization of work production in an office, so long as the work gets done."

The SIM Foundation's Pickett isn't the only IT executive to say that kind of thinking is much too optimistic, if not downright deluded. Anyone looking to eventually reach a high-level management job in IT or finance -- or nearly any field, for that matter -- needs to be in the office, Pickett says. A lot.

"You can't develop relationships from afar or show leadership from afar. If you want to learn about the business, you pretty much have to be there," Pickett says. "To develop relationships with key executives, you've got to be in front of them. And you can't learn leadership skills unless you're watching how others lead."

Still, smart companies are aware of the misalignment and, where possible, are beginning to implement new policies and procedures to bring their work environments more in line with Generation Y's expectations.