The workforce of the future has a question for you...

I'm the next generation of the workforce. They call me a millennial, or gen Z, but don't label me. I’m highly skilled. I could be an engineer, a planner, a data scientist… or the right person for a job that doesn’t even exist yet. 

It will be digital natives like me who will take your industry workforce into the future. I've grown up with technology shaping my life and experiences. It's my work. It's my play. It’s my passion. I love working with people, not apart from them. I excel when I have the freedom to think, the flexibility to create, and the tools to innovate. To help you do things better tomorrow than you did today. 

You probably think of me as a young man, fresh from college, but I’m just as likely to be a woman. Gender doesn’t matter. What matters is talent. We don’t have to compete for your job, because everyone, in every industry, is chasing the same skills. Your job has to compete for us. 

The current ageing workforce is retiring faster than you can replace it, and you need my skills to fill the gap. With me and the right solutions, you can capture and communicate the knowledge and know-how of those who have gone before – ensuring new recruits move the world forward in exciting new ways. 

But when I look at your industry, still chasing paper and run on yesterday’s technology, I can't see where I fit in. And although I’m at home in the virtual world, I’m also passionate about protecting the real one, and doing things safely, which is why sustainability in your industry really matters to me. If we’re going to work together in the true spirit of collaborative innovation, I must know it also matters to you.

So, please tell me this: how’re you going to transform your industry into one that I can fully invest myself? One where I can be part of a digital workforce that can change the future for good?  

We agree with you. Which is why we are determined to take our organization into the future. To create a new business model. To be disruptive in a way that will create that ‘better tomorrow’. To engage with all generations of the future workforce. To transform the old ways of thinking and working.

The industry is already modernizing itself and bringing in new technologies that focus on innovation and sustainability, but that process needs to speed up. We must accept that people need be able to work together without silos: redefining how they can effectively collaborate no matter where they are. That requires social innovation, social collaboration and social engagement.

And as you join this new, more flexible workforce, and older generations depart, it’s vital not to lose their valuable knowledge and know-how. To make sure that happens we need to connect people and roles, using the latest digital tools to work together experientially – delivering a digital continuity of knowledge that will accelerate both our digital business transformation and your career.

That’s why it’s essential to create a seamless connection between everybody in the organization. We need a platform on which everybody can operate, communicate and contribute – providing an enterprise structure that bridges the generation gap and makes the most of what they have to offer. A platform that allows the older generation to pass on what they know to younger workers – and vice versa. To capture practices and put them into workflows. To apply simulation tools to prove ideas before employment in the real world. This is how we can move towards more sustainable solutions. Reimagining new ways of doing things: like a chemical formulation that’s less impactful on the environment; a more efficient way of performing a process, or establishing the best place to build a plant – logistically and environmentally. All of which can be perfected virtually before becoming reality. And we really do need your unique skills, experience and vision to make all that possible. Only together can we transform the future for good.