Shocker: Young employees are more concerned about online privacy than you thought

We’re conducting a nine-question survey about online privacy in the workplace, and the first hundred responses have already shown a fascinating trend.

Namely, younger employees seem to be more aware and more concerned than their older counterparts about the information and identities their jobs require them to reveal.

In other words, 23-year-old Sierra works at a PR firm, and she’s strongly encouraged to use her personal Twitter account to help promote her clients. Her Twitter handle is also published on the company website.

According to our preliminary results, Sierra is more likely to be somewhat concerned or even upset about this situation than not. And there’s a 50 percent chance she feels her company should be using less of her personal online life for professional purposes.

These odds are about 10 percent lower for the 26 and older crowd.

Here’s a snapshot of the data:

Employees in the 18- to 25-year-old range have grown up in a wired world. Since high school, they’ve been cautioned about maintaining some digital privacy, including warnings that HR pros might comb their personal Facebook accounts for incriminating information.

Since they’re digitally literate from the start, many of them are now required or encouraged to use Facebook and Twitter to post company-approved messages, too.

We’ll be posting more data from the survey as the responses roll in. You can take the survey from this link or simply fill out the form below.