More than 700 000 young people enter the job market every year. These generation Y students, with the algorithm « an app for everything » etched on their hard drive, are sometimes faced with unsettling gaps between the modern technology they use daily and the aging one of their company.
« Oh no, I don’t feel like using this application. »
Adrien, 24, during the test of a business application
On the one hand, glamorous and user-friendly apps, erased from their smartphone at the slightest indication of inefficiency (not fast, smooth, intuitive or pretty enough), and on the other hand 10-year-old business applications that are not suited to the latest developments in ergonomics.
In this context, it’s hard to convince young people to stay : for example, the Banking and Insurance sector suffers from a high employee turnover, with sales representatives and back-office managers leaving their position after a few months. They get bored for a simple reason: the outdated interface of their work tool puts them off, interfering with their motivation.
Why should we address the youth and generation Y in particular?
Generation Y is tomorrow’s employees. It makes sense to give priority to the future rather than to an outbound generation X, especially as it’s now following Generation Y’s path.
Indeed, it has been observed recently that people born before 1980 (generation X) are now trying to adopt the practices and behaviours of the next generation.
Innovative companies now take these issues into account from the very first service drafts. At Axance, we support them through targeted focus groups in order to understand to the finest detail the practices of this ever-growing target.
These discussion groups enabled to increase our knowledge of this generation. For example, it was already known in view of Facebook’s popularity that the Millennials like to expose themselves, their life, story and achievements. But above all they want to feel good at work, be a part of the company, be listened to, recognized… in short, feel alive.
They want to feel pleasure when working, and feel like their work means something, which is a new point of view compared to older employees.
UX designers take into account this valuable information when designing interactions in business applications, by developing the humanity of these actions and favouring the user’s value.
For these companies with a high employee turnover, it is wise to modernize the business applications in order to attract young graduates and even build the company’s future with them.