Last week, I spoke at a conference and during one of the breaks, I heard some incredibly interesting facts from an IT executive who is wrestling with the "younger generation" and the entitlements they believe they should have. I have been hearing similar concerns from other IT managers and leaders.

As top college graduates enter the IT workforce each year, top companies compete in order to get the best of them. A few years ago, offering a flexible work schedule or a work-at-home setting was a differentiator. Now, it’s a necessity.

Likewise, offering a stipend so they could select their own laptop and PDA was a differentiator. Now, it’s fast becoming a necessity.

Given the fact that college graduates - especially those in highly technical fields such as engineering, computer science, or other areas of IT - expect to work from home using equipment of their choice during the hours they select, how can companies offer that differentiator that will make them stand out?

I ask that question in the hopes that readers will provide some suggestions of what’s worked for them.

Good salaries and bonuses are important, no doubt. But the younger generation may not be quite prepared to tackle that solo. For example, the IT executive at the conference shared with me an astounding story: One of his young IT staff members said he didn’t feel he was making enough money. So, he gave his boss a note from his parents, trying to negotiate a raise for him.

Flexible work schedules are imperative, but they don’t instill work ethic unless the employees know what the alternatives are - i.e., rigid work schedules and scheduled on-call hours. For example, some younger employees don’t have enough sense of loyalty to be available after 5 p.m. for an emergency, while their counterparts in the 40-plus crowd wouldn’t think of walking away from such a situation.

In some fields - such as contact center operators, salespeople, service people, and knowledge workers - flexible work schedules and options to work at home or a nearby branch office still instill loyalty. In other words, they know they have a good gig, and they don’t want to lose that flexibility, so they are devoted to their companies.

But increasingly, younger IT employees (and I stress, not ALL younger IT employees, but a growing number) believe they have entitlements having grown up in a different, connected, virtual world than their preceding generations.

Robin Gareiss is executive vice president and senior founding partner of Nemertes Research. Click  here for the newsletter archive.