Ethnographic & Cultural Shifts in the current workforce

It is important to understand some of the major cultural shifts happening amongst the current workforce primarily comprising of Generation Y. There are differences in opinions but in general the findings indicate that PaPR researchers highlighted three socio-cultural trends –

1. The new WE
2. The new ME
3. Plastic Time

The new WE

• Blogs, wikis, and other Web 2.0 applications are revolutionizing the social order.
  - The Internet is not just personal information-finding, but a place of action.
  - People are coming together on and off-line to get something done: grassroots activism is among the winners in a Web 2.0 world.
• In our collective experience is that we’ve found new ways to come together, more efficient and powerful, enabled by our current technologies.
• We are not just passive web surfers, but social doers on- and off-line. The powerful actors are the collective, not the individual.

The new ME

• Media has become MEdia – both on-line and off, we are the creation of our own creations and consumptions.
• MEdia emphasizes media “expertise” as a cultural value to be performed.
  - Facebook applications, YouTube videos, playlists…are all about who you are.
• The expertise in media manipulation, practice & adoption that you demonstrate is more important than the content created.
• There is a shift - In particular, youth do not see technology as a special category that enables something, but one of many material possibilities to create their own selves.

Plastic Time

• Research first revealed that the issue of managing one’s own personal time zones was increasingly complex and fragmented - though this occurs differently in different parts of the world.
• Your time is shrinking, yet somehow, you happen to know the latest post on your favorite website; A jet setting life style – but you still keep up with your blog postings & email;
• Research showed that you are experiencing “plastic time.”
• The experience of "plastic time" frames modern life—it is an experience that is highly interruptible; shrinking and expanding around immediate concerns; and interleaving through multiple activities.

Contributed By:
Ranjan Sarkar
(Vice President - HR & Corporate Communication)
Acclaris Limited