CompTIA Report Shows Demographics of BYODers
CompTIA Report Shows Demographics of BYODers by UCStrategies Staff
A new report by CompTIA reveals that BYOD in the workplace is skewed toward employees who are in their 20s and 30s. In a poll of 700 office workers, 61 percent of those in their 20s, 59 percent in their 30s, 46 percent in their 40s, 33 percent in their 50s, and 32 percent in their 60s said that they use personal devices or applications for work purposes.
“Taken in the aggregate, there's a near-even split of all workers that incorporate personal tech into work and those that do not,” the CompTIA report stated. “Looking more closely at the demographic breakdowns, however, it’s abundantly clear that this practice is far more prevalent, and presumably valued, by younger workers.”
Millennials or GenY technology professionals will comprise majority of the workforce by 2015, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Thus, CIOs should take their needs into consideration when formulating BYOD strategies.
CompTIA explained that the eventual shift of the workforce generational composition into the 20- to 34-year-old group is attributed to the soon-to-retire 50-somethings and the relatively few 35- to 49-year-old employees.
And there’s a difference between GenX and GenY workers when it comes to their use of technology.
During the Commonwealth Club event held in San Francisco in July, tech executives discussed the future of the workplace. Rowan Trollope, senior vice president and general manager of the collaboration technology group at Cisco, addressed the crowd and remarked, “GenX is tech savvy, while GenY is tech dependent.”
Both GenY and GenX technology professionals believe that social media savvy is a valuable skill set for work, according to the CompTIA report. However, GenY employees expect unrestricted access to social media at work.
The CompTIA report also indicated that 74 percent of GenY professionals used a smartphone for work purposes in 2012.
Other findings concerning the mindset of GenY workers include the following: eMarketer finds that 43 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds claim texting is just as meaningful as conversing over the phone, while market research firm Iconoculture discovers that 40 percent of GenY professionals believe that it is acceptable to blog about workplace issues.
When recruiting talent, CIOs may also need to play on the company’s level of tech-savvy. CompTIA found that three out of four men between the ages of 20 to 49 years take into consideration a potential employer’s level of tech-savvy as a criterion for deciding whether or not to work there. (KOM) Link