IEEE must ensure that we have oversight of challenges and needs of young engineers in industry face as well as IEEE’s declining practicing engineer membership that we are now attempting to address. Irrespective of IEEE membership, Young Professionals today face many challenges in their early careers which include balancing a social life with a professional career and extra-curricular activities, understanding the company culture and developing a career path, obtaining further education while focusing on every-day tasks and much more.
Furthermore, overarching across all of the abovementioned is the impact of disruptive technologies which are creating new industries and business models, and destroying old ones. New technologies, data analytics and social networks are having a huge impact on how people communicate, collaborate and work. As generations collide, workforces become more diverse and people work longer; traditional career models may soon be a thing of the past. Many of the roles and job titles of tomorrow will be ones we’ve not even thought of yet.
“There will be a major shift away from the thinking that we learn one profession, have one job and stay in it for decades.” In fact it is fair to say that this radical change in thinking has already begun.
Young Professionals prefer a workplace with a creative, inclusive working culture rather than a more authoritarian, rules-based approach. They value open and free-flowing communication, a culture of mutual support and tolerance, a strong sense of purpose beyond financial success, an environment that encourages ideas from all employees, a commitment to equality and inclusiveness and support and understanding of their ambitions.
On Sunday 13th August, at the IEEE Sections Congress, the Young Professionals tackled the challenges and needs of our members in industry.
Eddie Custovic, IEEE Industry Engagement Advisory Board Member, lead a 90-minute panel discussion with eight Young Professionals currently working in industry representing telecommunications, power & energy, biomedical, defence, cloud computing, manufacturing, design and others.
Panelists included:
• Hossam Ali, Vodaphone, Egypt
• Ramesh Nair, Intel, USA
• Aleksander Mastilovic, Telecommunications Regulatory Agency, Bosnia & Herzegovina
• Nivas Ravichandran, Freshdesk, India
• Sara Barros, Thales, Nederlands
• Mehrnaz Shoushtarian, Bionics Institute, Australia
• Dinko Jakovljevic, Ericsson, Croatia
• Abdur Rehman, Puget Sound Energy, USA
Article contributed by Eddie Custovic, Editor in Chief, IMPACT by IEEE Young Professionals