Don’t get left behind. HR and IT policies need to drastically change if they want to keep up with the new breed of IT-savvy employees.

At the moment, you’d be hard pressed to miss an article written about Generation Y. It seems that this generation of people who are flooding the workforce in droves have really got employers and business executives talking. With their new creative ways of thinking and their no-nonsense attitudes, Generation Y will require a shift of traditional enterprise ways to harness this very talented workforce. But first, let’s define Generation Y, also known as the digital natives or millennials.

This group of people are typically those between the ages of 13 and 29 years and are what we term as “born digital”. Most have never used a rotary phone and can’t imagine how people communicated before the advent of instant messaging, email, phone texting or social networking sites. In fact, about 66% of millennials regularly access social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace. An alarming 75% of millennials have also taken IT matters into their own hands by downloading and installing their own software choices on their work computer.

Generation Y are typically independent, highly visual and impatient with anything that they cannot customise to fit their unique personality and tastes. If they do not like an application or tool they are given by their employer’s IT department, they simply go to the web and find one that works better. If they do not like the boring PC given to them when starting a job, they bring their personal laptop into the office. If a corporate security policy seems illogical or inconvenient, they simply ignore it. This is why corporate IT departments are truly frightened of this digital generation.

As this generation of 72 million (about 30% of the world population) enters the workforce, IT departments will face unprecedented new challenges that will threaten to disrupt every order and structure they have implemented in the past for the company. IT departments have traditionally employed policies, rules, standard applications and operating systems with very little tolerance for variation. Mainly, because there is high level of concern about the company’s data security and the costs incurred if it’s breached.

With their indiscriminate use of personal technology and their natural tendency to blur the lines between personal and work IT environments, the millennial workforce presents a threat to IT security by personalising and customising workplace devices and applications. According to information technology research and advisory firm Gartner, an increasing number of staff want to use their own laptops at work, which is now becoming more commonly known as the “BYOPC” model.

In my view, this is a very natural progression for the use of technology. As Generation Y utilise technology for most of their daily activities and communication, they will have their preferred ways of use. Demanding that they conform to a strict standard will only reduce their productivity, value and longevity in a certain job.

Just like when you call a plumber out to your house, you don’t insist on them using your wrench to fit a new tap. The plumbers use their own wrench which they know and have used to the best of their ability. Yet when it comes to the actual tap they are hired to fit, you may have a specific preference for the make and model of wrench they have to use, which they are unaccustomed to.

Hence, to accommodate the needs of the new workforce, we are seeing a huge shift from rigidly enforced IT systems to more flexible and personable systems. It caters not only to digital natives but to all generations who are demanding IT personalisation.

Some analysts predict IT departments will be forced to cede some of their control but new “smart delivery” technologies and strategies are making it possible for corporations to enjoy the best of both worlds. The key concept is delivery. If Generation Y employees want their IT experience to be on-demand and every application they use to be at their fingertips, the delivery of that experience needs to be immediate and secure with high performance.

By securely supporting both corporate and non-corporate applications and data on employee-owned laptops through the separation of software from hardware, companies can keep sensitive workplace data confidential with strong built-in defences against a wide range of threats. When organisations leverage “smart delivery” IT strategies, they can strike a balance between workplace security and keeping their millennial workforce happy.

To attract and retain staff of all ages in a competitive job market, employers and more specifically IT departments need to become flexible in catering to the needs and desires of their employees. However this flexibility cannot come at the expense of an organisation’s information security, making smart delivery of company information imperative.