Generation C

Federal human resources leaders are still trying to get their heads around how to manage four different generations in the workplace. Are they ready for a fifth? A new report by Booz and Company suggests a fifth generation -- Generation C -- is starting to enter the workplace.

The "C" stands for connect, communicate and change, and Booz and Company notes that members of this generation were born after 1990 and are the first to have never lived in a world without the Internet. By 2020, the report notes, an entire generation will have grown up in a primarily digital world. By 2020, this group also will make up 40 percent of the population in the U.S. and other countries, and 10 percent of the rest of the world, the report states.

The report marks the beginning of a long-term project Booz and Company is launching to investigate and define the tech trends that will define the next decade and how business leaders should respond.

So what trends will prevail, and what influence will Generation C have on the workplace? To start, being connected on a 24/7 basis will be the norm, and by 2020, the number of mobile users will reach 6 billion and the number of people accessing the Internet will reach 4.7 billion, primarily through mobile devices. At the same time, personal and business activities will mingle seamlessly, the report notes.

In addition, half of world's labor force will be "flexible" in some way by 2014, the report states. This will be the era of "working nomads," who embrace flexible working times, teleworking and flexible employment relationships, the report notes. The year 2014 also will begin the era of the smart cloud, where members of Generation C will live in an interconnected world in which services and data reside online rather on the devices themselves.

The generation gap also will continue, even though the upper age limit of the digitally literate will rise. Currently, the average 65-year-old spends just two to three hours online per week, but in 2020, those individuals will spend closer to eight hours online weekly. They will still significantly lag behind the 16-to-24-year-old group, which already spends 13 hours online per week, the report notes.

In 2009, GovLoop Founder Steve Ressler used the term Generation C to define members of any age group who actively use social media and engage others online. "This is a generation of early adopters who are young at heart," he said.

So what could the emergence of Generation C -- as Booz and Company defines it -- mean for your agency? Can it keep up?