Abstract

Organizations often invest considerable time and money to implement new technology in the workplace. Whether or not a new technology is adopted by an employee is often a function of the ease of use of the new technology, and how that technology impacts the productivity, and well-being of that employee. But the workforce is diverse, and employees vary in age, and gender. We expected that not all individuals would embrace new technology with the same degree of comfort. In this qualitative analysis, we interviewed 22 participants and asked them to describe their level of comfort learning new technology. These participants varied in age and gender, as we would expect in the workplace. This thesis explored whether individuals of different age, and gender would vary in their comfort, or self-efficacy, using a new technology. Self-efficacy is the degree with which one expects he or she will be able to complete a task. We found that as people age, self-efficacy with respect to new technology was lower, and they were less comfortable using new technology. Older participants, particularly women over 50 were averse to adopting new technology. We found that, despite their tendency to avoid new technologies, the older participants preferred a hands-on learning approach when available. This thesis offers recommendations for future research in how to make the implementation of new technology in the workplace more accessible based on employee age, and gender.