Case Study:
St. Luke's Medical Center in Boise, Idaho, is a case in point. Hospital leaders discovered that the younger medical staff were texting each other with medical orders and patient updates. Texting is one of the preferred communication methods among these physicians and nurses, and it is much more efficient than the hospital's formal practice of phoning and paging people. But texting through public network slacks security (it could be hacked by outsiders) and violates industry regulations. Another hospital would have banned the practice without further thought, but St. Luke's contracted an IT company instead to set up a secure texting system for the hospital.
"I've heard [officials of] other organizations say, 'We can't do that,'" says Jennifer Mensik, St. Luke's administrator of nursing and patient care services. "But when people are trying to do the best they can for the patient, they're going to try to find a workaround. That should be an alert to some of the older generation that this is a good idea. Let's not stop it. Let's figure out how we can do it legally and correctly."
Although companies need to adapt to millennial communication preferences, the reverse is also true. Millennials need to spruce up their skills using older technologies. For instance, advertising sales at Metro Guide Publishing in Halifax, Nova Scotia, were down, and publisher Patty Baxter noticed that the office lacked the buzz of sales calls. The problem, she realized, was that most of Metro Guide's new generation of employees were emailing clients rather than selling advertising by telephone.
Baxter explains that email doesn't work in business deals, where personal rapport and quick understanding of the client's needs are critical. "You're not selling if you're just asking a question and getting an answer back," she says. Baxter also suggests that phone calls tend to result in fewer communication errors, citing a recent incident in which a sales employee misinterpreted a client's email about a possible advertising sale. Metro Guide sales staff now receives on-the-job coaching with phone use consultant Mary Jane Copps, who observes that millennial employees (as well as others) often suffer from phone phobia. "It's a lack of confidence that they'll be able to say the right words in the right order in the right amount of time," she explains.
Discussion Questions
1. Take a poll of your class. At school or work, how many regularly (e.g., daily or every few days) send or receive information (not entertainment) by (a) using email, (b) sending and reading instant messages or tweets, (c) sending and receiving cell phone text messages, (d) reading/writing blogs, (e) visiting/ authoring social media sites (e.g., Facebook, Instagram), or (f) watching/creating online videos (e.g., YouTube)?
2. Even within this generation, there are different preferences for communication media. After conducting the poll, ask students who don't regularly use one or more of these methods why.
They don't like that communication medium. Ask those who very often use these sources to give their points of view.
3. Companies have been slow and reluctant to adopt social media channels, cell phone text messaging, and similar forms of communication. If you were a senior manager, how would you introduce these communication technologies in the workplace to share information and knowledge more effectively?