How do we attract a new generation?

Many years ago I finished my training as an archaeologist. Fully qualified I was raring to take on the world. Realising that job opportunities were few and far between I joined a non-governmental organisation specialising in labour law matters in the agricultural sector. I cut my teeth developing training materials for farm workers and paralegals for many years before moving to another part of the country and new challenges. For 18 months I developed national training programmes for the community police sector and then also on small business development for local government. I joined the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa where I began an eight-year stint involved in various operations, including planning, voting and counting, results, registration, training and international liaison--a well-rounded education of experiences.

By the time I left I was seeing a new crop of people joining the organisation, all of them eager and raring to go, just as I was. Except... They are more ambitious, have very different experiences to mine (in a post-apartheid South Africa) and seem far less likely to do an eight-year stint in the Commission. Yet they are the axle around which elections will be run in the future. Their energy needs to be harnessed and encouraged in a way that ensures their growth and continued interest in doing elections work. As elections becomes a profession, we need to be focussing on this issue of the new generation of election administrators. They represent the youth, whom many EMB (election management bodies) are battling to involve and regenerate in their voters' rolls or registers. With time they become the new face of the organisation. How do we attract them and adapt our notions of management to retain them as the next generation of election workers?