How companies are adapting to millennial mindsets

As the world moves towards greater digitalisation, use of artificial intelligence, and big data analysis for a variety of purposes, the contours of workplaces too are undergoing dramatic shifts as a result. The fusion of physical and digital worlds is prompting a diverse range of experts to explore how the future will shape up.

The millennials (the generation of people born in the 1980s and 90s, and who have reached young adulthood in the 21st century) recognise the benefits of automation in terms of productivity, possibly faster than their parents. Generally, they tend to be more inclined towards machine learning and digital platforms to facilitate business insights and decision-making in both professional and personal spheres.

Gen Y has grown up with broadband, smartphones, laptops and social media being the norm and expects instant access to information. This is the first generation to enter the workplace with a better grasp of today’s key business tools than more senior workers.

As they inundate the workforce and work neck-and-neck with a different generation of colleagues, corporate leaders too are seeking to understand what makes these talented and dynamic workers tick, so that they can attract, engage and retain them to re-shape the dynamism of the workplace in coming years.

By 2025, over 75 per cent of the workforce will be composed of millennials who are confident, always connected online and have much more information in their hands than any other generation in human history. This enables them to be more adept consumers as well, shopping for what best meets their needs relative to the lifestyles they want.

Rising aspirations

Millennials aspire for freedom and flexibility, reflected by their high value placed on a work-life balance. They work to live – not live to work. They prefer to communicate via text and social media. They highly value being included in decision-making. They care about the bigger picture and want to make an impact – not just at work but in their communities as well.

Millennials are turned off by rigid corporate structures. They expect constant feedback, rapid progression, a varied and interesting career. Their ambition and desire to keep learning and move quickly upward through an organisation requires a focused response from employers. If the expectations of millennials are not being met, they move on.

For companies, managing these expectations is a challenging prospect. On the business side, most companies need to do a better job of understanding millennials and having millennials understand them. Many organisations are changing their work environment to suit the younger generation, adopting an inclusive approach and ensuring that all different generations work together with equal opportunity and representation – even in leadership roles.

Looking ahead to 2020, there could be five generations in the workforce: baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964), Gen Xers (born from 1965 to 1980) and digital natives who go beyond millennials to include generation Z (the centennials born after 2000). As jobs are made up of many tasks, the nature of existing jobs will change and new careers will be created.

Companies are therefore re-aligning their strategy to connect with this new workforce through new-age recruiting tools like social media platforms, and once hired, are investing in their skills development and training to bring them up to speed with, and channel their strengths to add value to, traditional workplace processes. Synergistically, an overwhelming number of companies are also re-training people to use new technologies, or redesign jobs to better take advantage of the digitally-inclined skills of this workforce.

To retain their competitive advantage, companies will need to keep reinventing the fundamentals of HR. Once this new pool of talent is part of the workforce, retaining it will require constant effort from the HR team.

Millennials and Gen Z professionals follow their hearts and pursue careers while exploring their passions. Gen Z is more entrepreneurial and self-focused. These professionals see no reason why they can’t work in one department for a few days a week and in a different section on other days.

‘Reverse mentoring’ a part of new retention programmes

As millennials need an engaging workplace, many organisations are doing away with formal office attire to semi-formal or smart work formals. HR professionals are coming up with new retention programmes like flexible work hours, remote working and collaborative work spaces.

Some are even organising reverse mentoring programmes in order to pair older and/ or senior executives with the younger employees to enable cross-flow of ideas and expertise.

While skilled people are good at certain roles, companies are looking at people who are curious to learn and can seamlessly move from one role to the other. Apprenticeships, online courses and certifications are being encouraged to stay relevant in the rapidly-changing industry scenario.

Organisations need to harness thought diversity as an important aspect of workforce diversity. The focus will be on harnessing full potential of people – a mix of full-time employees, freelancers, young and old, and all genders – by acknowledging and encouraging each person’s unique perspective and ways of thinking.

Traditional performance ratings, year-end rankings and reviews may eventually be phased out in some setups. HR will employ analytics to understand the needs of people in a customised, individual-specific manner and provide solutions through mobile technology and newer platforms to reduce effort spent in redundant processes.

As millennials’ sense of self-determination and exploration continues to grow, it becomes challenging for companies to find them – and retain them. Hence, organisations will need to keep pushing the boundaries of employee engagement and find answers in new-age tools and ideas, to keep this new crop of employees engaged, motivated, and committed to adding value to common organisational goals.