CorpComms Magazine

Young professionals are willing to take lower salaries if their employers guarantee them the freedom to use their mobile devices and access social media while in the office, according to a new report.

The 2011 Cisco Connected World Technology Report found that young professionals want to be free to use the Internet as they please while in the workplace, and whether or not they can influences their employment choices more than their salary, says the report.

The report reveals that traditional methods of attracting new employees may now play less of a role for the new more digitally-obsessed generation of workers.

A third of respondents admitted that they would prioritise social media freedom over salary when accepting a job offer, and 45 per cent of young employees said that they would accept a lower-paying job if it meant they had more flexibility to choose a mobile device and to access social media than a higher-paid job with less flexibility.

More than half of respondents said that they would not accept a job that banned social media. And two out of three said that they would ask about social media policies during a job interview. A quarter said that a flexible social media policy was a key factor in their decision to accept a job offer.

Almost a third of respondents believed that their company had taken into account their desire for social media and mobile device flexibility when hiring them, as a way of attracting them to the job.

Half of all students and young employees said that they would rather lose their purse or wallet than a smartphone or mobile device. While a third of young employees use a minimum of three devices for work purposes.

Almost seven out of ten believe that their company should allow them to access social media and other Internet sites with their work-issued mobile device.

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