Many Millennials unaware of or ignoring corporate IT rules

More than half of the working Millennials polled for an Accenture study said that were either unaware of their company's IT policies or are not willing to follow them.

The company surveyed 400 members of the Millennial generation - those age 14-27 -- to determine their technology needs and desires.

Of the 169 college graduates that are working full- or part-time, 40 percent said that their companies have detailed policies on posting work or client information online. Of those, 6 percent said they post such information despite rules prohibiting it. About 31 percent of working Millennials said they are unaware whether their companies have policies prohibiting the posting of such information and 17 percent said their employer has no such policy.

Accenture noted that both working and student members of the Millennial generation said that they expect to use their personal technology and mobile devices for work assignments. Many say that a company's willingness to accommodate those desires is a key factor in accepting a job offer, Accenture noted.

The large number of respondents who are either unaware of or unwilling to follow their company's IT policies has "profound implications," noted Gary Curtis, Accenture's chief technology strategist.

"[With Millennials], there's a whole different view of authority," he added. "We have got to do better at understanding how to make this kind of policy appeal to them on a logical, sound basis to make sure they understand why it is in their best interest. Many companies need to do a better job of writing [IT policies] in sensible, plain English -- getting the legalese out of the loop and writing a policy that any person can understand. We all need work on more prominent dissemination of our technology policies and all the things that they cover."

Many of the working Millennials listed several unsupported technologies that they use for job-related activities, such as mobile phones (39 percent), social networking sites (28 percent), instant messaging products (27 percent), open source technology (19 percent) and online applications (12 percent), according to Accenture.

In addition, many of those surveyed reported that they regularly download non-standard technology from free public Web sites like open source communities and mashup and widget providers. Three quarters of those surveyed said that they have accessed online collaborative tools, and 71 percent said they have accessed online applications from free public Web sites when those technologies were not available at work, Accenture said.

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