By Minda Zetlin

Consultant and educational gaming software designer Marc Prensky in 2001 coined the phrase "digital natives" to identify Americans born recently enough that they have never known a world without personal computers, cell phones and the Internet.

Today, the oldest of the digital natives, born between 1980 and 1994 and often known as Generation Y or the Millennials, are entering or already in the workplace. It's no secret that many older executives find managing the Millennials less than easy. The media, too, has had a field day with this generation's shortcomings: Generation Y needs "praise teams" and other forms of positive reinforcement to stay motivated, they've written. But smart IT leaders have discovered that today's younger workers also bring valuable resources to the workplace. The fact that they've always handled the very technologies that power an enterprise is a good thing, especially for CIOs looking for innovation from their employees. Generation Y is definitely willing and able to use technologies in new and exciting ways, say experts.

"We see a lot of creativity in this age group," says Mike Child, CTO of Primedia, a provider of print, Internet and mobile real estate solutions. "In the past, we looked to the product group or marketing group to bring new ideas to us. Then we realized we have this great resource in our [own] department that is the same age range as many of our customers, and which is very plugged in to Twitter, Facebook and MySpace."

That's not to say that the gripes about Gen Y's habits and demeanors aren't valid, something Bill Thirsk, VP of IT and CIO at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., can attest to. "Just this morning, a Generation Y employee, on his first day of work, arrived in my office and asked how long it took me to get that office," Thirsk recounts. "When I said 26 years, he said he'd get there in half the time." Some managers might have taken this flippant remark as a show of disrespect. But Thirsk saw it as a very good sign for his company. "You absolutely want someone working for you who believes he can achieve what you have but in half the time," he says. "I told him, 'Good! Go do it!' "

Thirsk and other experts agree that while managing Generation Y employees may be different from managing their more seasoned colleagues, there is a set of givens that can help. For example, the under-30 set has significantly different life experiences; how they view technology may be in stark contrast to how the rest of your IT team thinks about it. And their workplace expectations are different as well. So which personality traits go along with these givens? Consider these attributes, and how you can tap them to bring out greatness in your employees: