Ethnographic Research - Millennials & Future Workplaces
The Me-Generation
Millennials are changing the way we interact with devices
Millennials are taking over the world in a very literal way. This year, the demographic became the largest living generation in the United States over the baby boomer generation that once held the title. And in a country with 75.4 million millennials, it’s not hard to notice the generation’s habits—especially those involving technology.
Objective
The work force is changing. 50% of the workforce will be take up by millennials by 2020. The objective of this study was to identify what this means for the business in terms of technology, design and innovation. Questions that need to be answered:
1. What is the office of the future?
2. What are the needs and motivations of this new workforce? How does technology play a part in their day to day work life?
3. What are the experiences that work for them? What are their key frustrations?
4. Understand current operations, workflows, technology used to address business problems?
5. Help define what the office of the future looks like
Research Methodology
1. Site Visits:
• Obtain a first-hand view of what “office” means to various business types via two-hour contextual interviews; understand the tools used most commonly to get work done
• Identify where they see their business going and how “doing work” will change in the future
2. Focus Groups:
Use of an online interactive platform to obtain a wider audience to understand current environments, devices used, thoughts on the future of working
3. Insights Workshop
Insights
Back from the site visits, I collaborated with a team of product managers, UX designers, marketing professionals and R&D experts to share the findings and define user targets and personas, identify the key challenges and pain points and also the trends in the office work space for the next gen population, the Millennials.
Observations & Key Takeaways
“Work spaces are a representation of oneself. Coming to work is a reward for millennials. The line between personal and professional spaces are blurring”
“Work spaces are shrinking. There is a rise in collaborative spaces. Working in close teams and shared environment adds to productivity”
“Rise in shared spaces or rented environments. This provides millennials the flexibility to work from anywhere and irrespective of time and space constraints.”
Millennials & Technology
“A diverse range of workforce working harmoniously together. Millennials are seen as tech experts in an mixed environment workforce”
“Millennials expect technology to be unobtrusive yet powerful. The technology should not dictate them. they should be in control of the technology”
“Millennials are risk takers and multitaskers. They look at technology as an enabler. They seek solutions for every business problem and expect the technology to work exactly right”
