Wednesday, 10 December 2008

Why you should never stick to the subject and always follow your intuition

I have two presentations lined up with a common theme: one is on Green IT and the other is on recruiting in a digital world. So what's the common theme you might wonder... Well, it's the Generation Y. I admit, I never stick to the subject - that's probably why I am asked to take the stage in the first place.

When doing some research - yes statistics still prevail upon intuition - I stumbled upon some interesting survey results from Experience, a US job site for college students and graduates. The survey reveals that Generation Y job seekers favor environmentally-friendly companies. This does not really come as a surprise for Gen Y connoisseurs but the final stats however, does show an interesting twist.

  • 81% of Gen Y find it important to work for a green company
  • 79% say they will be more likely to accept a job offer at a green company over another company
I still believe that they will favor the not so green companies if the wages and company car are better but this is a clear signal: You'd better add a line or two on the environment in your company's mission or potential recruits will lose interest.
The bottom line is simple: going green is not only an environmental imperative it will also help companies to save money in the long run and attract the right type of people.
It is a bit like a corporate hattrick if you ask me but apparently I am one of the few seeing it this way.
But what is the state of Green IT in the first place? I will present some figures during a presentation next week but I have a feeling that there is still a large disconnect between companies that say they go green and the ones actually living it the green way.

Unless there are some statistics out there proving that 80% of the company executives have going green on the corporate agenda - I just follow my intuition like John Naisbitt prescribed: Intuition becomes increasingly valuable in the new information society precisely because there is so much data. And my intuition says that there is still a lot of work to be done before we really put our money where our mouth is.