Preparing Business for Generation Collaboration (June 2013)

Four generations in today’s workforce require companies find new ways to optimize collaboration and productivity

SAN MATEO, Calif. and HOD HASHARON, Israel, - June 11, 2013 – Currently, there are nearly 40 million Millennials working their way up the corporate ladder, with millions more set to join them over the next decade. With Traditionalists emerging from a retirement that wreaked havoc on their nest egg, to Baby Boomers and Gen X-ers working longer than any previous generation, companies looking to build high-performance teams need to recognize and respond in new ways to empower a workforce that spans four generations. [1]   

Generation Collaboration Has Arrived: The Tenets of Succes*s*

Managing a workforce spread across four generations is an unprecedented task for today’s CEOs. Organizations can no longer function as hierarchies with bosses in boardrooms and workers in cubes. Instead, they must morph into democracies where participation is celebrated. Alignment across the business is critical to success and awareness of tasks, assignments, responsibilies and work drives employees towards achieving their goals. “The modern workplace is an ecosystem -- a place centered around connection,” said Avinoam Nowogrodski, CEO and founder of  Clarizen, the recent  winner of the 2013 SIIA CODiE Award for Best Project Management Solution.

While organizations have embraced technology that enhances productivity, many workplaces have failed to adapt to the changing nature of how people are interacting online today. Looking at trends both in the workplace and in the world at large, companies need to  redefine collaboration for the enterprise. “By taking advantage of new technology that provides employees with more visibility into the information they need to get work done, people learn, they get promoted, and they are better equipped for success,” continued Nowogrodski. “True transparency serves as the foundation for a high-performance team by empowering employees throughout an organization to gauge both their own success and the success of their team.”

Benefitting Traditionalists and Boomers While Appealing to Millennials

Project management best practices can also be optimized with social engagement features, so they remain familiar to Traditionalists and Boomers while appealing to Gen X-ers and Millennials. This kind of constant engagement comes naturally to the Millennials who, as Time[2] recently pointed out, were raised by their Boomer parents to have the collaborative, social relationships modern-day workforces should be emulating.

In order to be useful, innovative project management practices must seamlessly integrate into the work process while also being accessible to every user from any portal. While older generations may find working from a desk during traditional business hours works best, Millennials are choosing to work at any time from anywhere. Traditional project management can’t handle both. Modern workplaces need to create project management best-practices where tasks can be done and teams can interact at any time from any place. “We are doing business in the “real-time” era. It’s about adopting to change, and without change, organizations will miss an opportunity to transform,” concludes Nowogrodski.

About Clarizen

Clarizen is the enterprise-class leader in work and project management solutions that harness the power of the cloud to get work done efficiently, effectively, and with better results. Fast to deploy and easy-to-use, Clarizen is redefining enterprise collaboration by connecting social context with tasks and projects to drive increased productivity and profitability. Clarizen fuels the high-performance teams of more than 2,000 organizations across 76 countries, including more than 25 of the Fortune 500. In 2013, Clarizen received the SIIA CODiE Award for “Best Product Management Solution.” Founded in 2005, Clarizen is privately held with offices in San Mateo, California and Hod Hasharon, Israel. For more information, visit   www.clarizen.com.

Clarizen and the Clarizen logo are trademarks of Clarizen Ltd. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

[1] Accounting Today, “To Recruit and Retain, Mind the (Generation) Gap”, 28 May 2013. http://www.accountingtoday.com/acto_blog/recruit-retain-generation-gap-mike-mcnamara-accounting-principals-66873-1.html

[2] _Time Magazine, “_Millennials: the Me Me Me Generation,” 20 May 2013. http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,2143001,00.html

Forbes, “Gimme, Gimme, Gimme: Millennials in the Workplace”, 16 May 2012. http://www.forbes.com/sites/tykiisel/2012/05/16/gimme-gimme-gimme-millennials-in-the-workplace/