Legal Research

Keeping the ?Young People? happy

By Colin Galinski

An article about Avner Levin’s new study about young people and technology ran in itWorldCanada yesterday.

The article, and presumably Levin’s research, considers ways that today’s employers can keep employees happy by resisting the urge to ban instant messaging within the office. I understand the need to ensure that employees don’t feel that walking through the office doors equates to a step back in time; however, I remain unsure about the final object here. Are we simply trying to keep the employees happy as they IM with friends and utilize social networking tools at work, or is there a greater, underlying goal here too?

That is, would it be unreasonable to wonder if keeping “young people” and “technology” together will not just be good ER, but good business? Happier employees are likely to stay longer (and thus reduce costly turnover), but will chatting at work, say in the law firm context, add to or detract from client management?

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on September 05, 2008 (boomark / email).