Building Workplace 2.0 For Millennials

BloombergQuintOpinion

Harsh Goenka @hvgoenka

January 15, 2017, 10:45 am January 15, 2017, 10:45 am

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For leaders in the present day, the most important issue has become talent management. A large part of this challenge arises from the emergence of ‘millenials’ into the modern workforce. They have brought with them a new dimension to organisations and the changes are significant. Money does matter to them, but a sense of purpose matters more.

• They are not happy just being around.
• They demand transparency and have an intrinsic approach of doing things the right way.
• They take corporate governance seriously.
• They are impatient when there is lack of dynamism.

The term millennial has become synonymous with people who grew up in a worldwide web-fuelled, increasingly online, and socially-connected world. They are targeted by marketers avidly and do not frown in perplexity when they come across a boy named Shanthi wearing a nose-pin who also makes big bucks writing advanced code for his U.S. employer. Armed with confidence, a follow-your-dreams attitude, impatience and a deep-seated desire to “matter” marks these beautiful frenzied minds who are a critical and valuable part of tomorrow’s organisational strategy. It is then abundantly clear that most of our current workplaces need to adapt and ready themselves to attract, absorb and form attachments with these folks.

Talent First And Diversity

Employees work at the Truly Madly Matchmakers Pvt. office in New Delhi, India, on Friday, July 29, 2016. (Photographer: Sara Hylton/Bloomberg)

While human resource practitioners have ensured that the word meritocracy has entered the annals of HR handbooks authored by them, the truest meaning of meritocracy is an acceptance of diversity which a few places are yet to wholly realise. For this to happen, we must redesign our promotion processes to take into account exceptional talent; create a workplace that benchmarks performance on the basis of talent alone and not dress code or marital status or community; promote a culture where employee stories of honest failures are celebrated and case studied along with success stories.

Diversity is a huge challenge, but also a great opportunity. Getting diversity policy right will be a future game changer and there is no greater diversity than the diversity of cool minds.

Life @ Work

I am not a firm believer in this whole work-life divide and believe instead that Gen Y or even Z, are not ready to compartmentalise their lives like many of us do. An office gym, a chill zone, bean bags, aesthetically designed spaces, a cafeteria which stacks muesli and fruits along with pizza and soda are the bread crumbs that will attract these lately born birds.

Fruit is set for employees during lunch in the cafeteria of the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. office in New York. (Photographer: Chris Goodney/Bloomberg)

With technology pervading every realm of our lives, the line between inside work and outside work is often blurred, thereby making it more imperative that employers rethink and evolve their social media and information technology policies. For HR, this can also be an invaluable data pool that provides them with added insights about staff preferences. However, one must also account for the impatience that marks millennials – they are far less forgiving of any technical hiccups or IT infrastructure restrictions than the previous generation and will not tolerate anything that comes in the way of their work.

Finally, beyond technology, companies will need to account for legislative changes around healthcare, leave management and attendance policies, and labour laws and adjust their strategies going forward.

In fact, RPG’s no-attendance policy is a huge draw at campuses, while employees love our aesthetically-designed office spaces which are aimed at giving a home-like vibe and feel.

I Matter

While narcissistic and self-absorbed are terms one often hears being used to label millennials, I’d like to imagine that having been born in a world that offers wide multiplicity of choices and that simply by virtue of hailing from smaller and more affluent family units, allows this generation the flexibility to exercise choice and demand recognition in a dynamic world. Gone are the days when a top grad school executive would wait for three years before a role change or promotion. Unless companies can build workplaces where employees can feel at home, be themselves, and are assigned roles which tap into their unique set of competencies, employee engagement and attrition will remain every HR manager’s nightmare.

A cyclist rides past Google Inc. offices inside the Googleplex headquarters in Mountain View, California, U.S., on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. (Photographer: Michael Short/Bloomberg)

Corporate social responsibility, of course, remains another key area to reinforce this sense of 'I Matter' within employees and companies will need to examine ways and means of tapping deeper into this area. A 2007 PwC study revealed that 90 percent of U.S. respondents would actively seek out employers whose corporate responsibility behaviour reflected their own.
While workplace 2.0 will demand its members to be flexible and learning agile, it will also offer the benefits of greater democratisation and rich experiences. I know, I would truly love to belong to such a place.