There are currently many different generations present on the virtual workplace at the same time. And all of them use media seemingly differently. The youth live in the world of TikTok and Snapchat, while newspaper and linear television are still mainly used by older generations. Whether this is really so black and white is of course a strong question. But it raises the question for many communication managers today to what extent their own (digital) internal communication media mix actually meets the needs of all those different generations in their own organization. We thought it was high time, together with the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, to investigate exactly how this works.
We have chosen to take the (social) intranet as a whole as a starting point, and then zoom in on the different functions and types of content that such a platform offers: a timeline, blogs, chat, among others. The research used a scientific literature study, surveys and in-depth interviews.
Oldest generation needs more support when using
First of all, it was investigated whether the perception of the platform as a whole depends on age. We focused on two specific questions.
- Perceived usefulness: to what extent does an employee believe that using the system will improve work performance?
- Perceived ease of use: to what extent does the employee trust that the system can be used effortlessly?
It is striking that at first – based on the survey – it seemed that the degree of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use is high within each age group. However, when we went into more detail about these results using in-depth interviews, it turned out that each age group, including the oldest age group itself, assumes that the oldest generation experiences a lower degree of ease of use. This group should rely more on other colleagues for using such platforms.
Furthermore, it became clear that often only during the introduction of a platform is invested in training in the operation and added value of the platform. New employees have often never had training and have indicated what to do. According to themselves, they have figured out how the platform works, so they still have the feeling that they are not using the full potential of ‘enterprise social networks’ and do not know exactly what the added value is.
Strong preference for scannable content
As mentioned, we then zoomed in on specific functionality and types of content that you often encounter on such a platform. The first thing that catches your eye is that no one is waiting for long pieces of text. Although it seems as if so-called ‘longreads’ are making a splash in External online media, such as the De Correspondent and The New York Times, employees are not waiting for it. Long stories in blog form are not spent on them. Just like video by the way, which honestly also came as a surprise to us. But maybe people are generally just hard at work and don’t have the time and desire to read endless pieces or watch videos. Thankfully, you would almost say.
What everyone apparently likes to consume is not so surprising. Especially scannable content does well, such as short articles, images and visual information such as infographics and symbols. And documents; apparently every generation also has a preference for consuming content in document form. Especially among the oldest generation, documents seem to be preferred when it comes to reading long pieces of text.
Our non-scientific assumption is that this is probably due to the fact that a document is relatively easy to find and it offers the possibility to print the content. However, the oldest generation also has a stronger preference for image, photos and visual information than other generations. The youngest generation, on the contrary, prefers this the least, which is remarkable since they practically grew up with this.
Chat popular among young people but hardly used
That younger generation also loves chatting. You often hear that younger people prefer not to mail and much prefer to chat. This is indeed evident from our research. However, what also turns out is that if this functionality is offered, it is not widely used. The reason can be guessed: because large groups of older colleagues do not use the chat function, the young people also benefit less and still use mail.
Furthermore, it is remarkable to see that the youngest users make the least use of available policy information. The oldest generation make the most use of policy and departmental information.
What does this mean for you?
Based on the above, we would give the following tips:
- When providing training, take into account different “onboarding times” for each group. In particular, the oldest generation did not grow up in a digital world, and not everything feels as intuitive to them as it does for younger generations. Help them understand how the platform works. This will increase perceived ease of use and, consequently, platform adoption.
- Provide structured training. Don’t offer training only during the implementation phase, but also during other stages of the platform’s lifecycle. Perceived usefulness and ease of use improve when new employees and users at different stages of the platform’s existence receive active support.
- Avoid long reads; break content into small, preferably visual chunks. If larger amounts of text are necessary, ensure it is presented as a document on the platform.
- Encourage the use of the chat function if you want to engage younger colleagues. However, make sure there is organization-wide activation to ensure its success.
Do you want to know more about the use of functionality and content of different groups of employees? Please feel free to contact Peter (peter@evolve.eu) of contact us at info@evolve.eu
