One of the primary challenges inherent in building strong multi-generational teams and coherency in multi-generational workforces is creating communication channels that will be effective across multiple generations. Part of this challenge includes identifying primary methods of communication for existing workforce members as well as training different generations in the communication channels that best support the organization’s overall goals. This challenge becomes more complex when dealing with a multi-national or global workforce situation.
Ruby DeMesme, a former Air Force assistant secretary for manpower, reserve affairs, installation and environment who is now a senior adviser at the consultancy Deloitte, recently addressed these issues as they specifically face government organizations in an interview with GovInfoSecurity.com:
One of the critical challenges facing the government is how best to integrate work across multiple disciplines while maintaining a secure computing environment.
Ruby DeMesme, a former Air Force assistant secretary for manpower, reserve affairs, installation and environment, sees information technology as shaping the way government workers perform their jobs. No longer are jobs aligned with a predefined assignment, but are dynamic, requiring critical thinking and the ability to navigate technology to determine how best to perform a variety of tasks.
“We have a multi-sector workforce and we have a multi-generational workforce and we have the ability to deliver information instantaneously around the world,” Ruby DeMesme, now a senior adviser at the consultancy Deloitte, said in an interview with GovInfoSecurity.com (transcript below). “But, when all of these confluences or ideas and factors and events come together, it means that the person in the workforce must be very comfortable with their knowledge or know where to get information on a split second notice; it is not even minute by minute today, it is second by second.”
Read the full article here.
DeMesme also recently published a paper on the subject (”Equipping the Federal Workforce in the Cyber Age“) in which she states that “Building a cyber-savvy workforce will require a paradigm culture shift.”