Talent 2

Generation Y has now well and truly entered the workforce, leaving management increasing puzzled about the best way to handle the unprecedented shift in workplace dynamics - and your workplace might not be an exception.

But who exactly are Gen Y? They are the 4.5 million Australians born between 1978 and 1994 who make up the emerging workforce. Born to wealthy Baby Boomers and raised to believe in themselves, they enjoy the benefits of an optimistic and politically stable economy and are an educated, wealthy and technically savvy generation. When choosing their careers, Gen Y workers look for personal, stimulating and rewarding experiences and work life balance. Money is often not a primary motivating factor, and neither is loyalty to their employer.

So what does motivate Gen Y, and how can you take advantage of these motivations to engage your younger workforce? According to social researcher Mark McCrindle, there are four main areas that employers need to reassess and re-evaluate in order to resonate with Gen Y: attraction and retention; management and leadership; training and development; and motivation and recognition.

Employers need to deploy strategies that will address these main areas of concern for Gen Y to ensure that their energy, creativity and loyalty is preserved, whilst also being pragmatic and managing business expectations. On a fundamental level employers need to:

Know Gen Y
As a first step, it is essential to understand who Gen Y is and how they differ from their predecessors. Before you can attract Gen Y employees, it is necessary to realise that their values and drivers are significantly different to their forerunners. Employers need to alter their own mindset and behaviours whilst ascertaining what motivates Gen Y and how to best engage them. This is a crucial step in securing and retaining their talent and maximising the return on investment in younger people.

Identify what attracts them
According McCrindle, when a Gen Y worker assesses a potential job, "salary ranks sixth in order of importance after training, management style, work flexibility, staff activities and non-financial rewards." This doesn't mean that Gen Y will work for peanuts, because on the flipside they expect more money, more quickly than Baby Boomers, and are willing to put in the hard work to get it. It is important for employers to reconsider job packages and include a variety of financial and non financial rewards (varying job roles, positive work culture, reward and recognition schemes etc) that will attract and engage Gen Y employees.

Generation Y are certainly not impressed by overtime, but are prepared to put in the extra time if there is some recompense and if they are not taken for granted. As a response to this, some companies are now offering massage therapy, yoga, meditation, stress-management workshops, onsite reflexology and aerobics classes, life coaching and nutrition counselling etc to reward staff for their hard work.

Include flexible work arrangements
According to a survey conducted by cultural change and work/life consultancy Managing Work | Life Balance International 47 per cent of respondents feel that they are are hindered by leaders in their organisation who find it difficult to change their views about the value of flexible working. Furthermore, just over a quarter of the respondents did not believe that their managers/leaders felt competent enough to manage flexibility within their work teams.

Gen Y are attracted to and expect a variety of flexible work options such as teleworking, compressed working weeks and maternity/paternity leave. In the Guide to Bold New Ideas for Making Work Work, an article published by the Families and Work Institute NYC, Accenture - a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing firm - knows that people need to take time out of the workforce. The company has created Future Leave, a self-funded sabbatical that employees can request and plan for ahead of time, banking part of their income in the months preceding the leave and drawing on those saved earnings while on leave.

Another example is Deloitte's Mass Career Customization program which creates a new paradigm of career development - a career lattice, not ladder. Employees in this assurance, tax, consulting and financial advisory firm make choices around four major dimensions of career progression - role, pace, location and schedule, and workload - allowing them to calibrate each of these four dimensions of their work experience to fit their current aspirations and life circumstances.

Offer job variety and growth
A key strategy in engaging a younger workforce is offering them sufficient variety within their roles and the opportunity to grow. Ascertain what keeps Gen Y motivated, educated and stimulated then try to provide these. If it is feasible, rotate staff around the organisation or offer secondments so that they can experience different job functions, especially abroad. Training and mentoring programs also appeal to Gen Y, so provide tools that enable them to learn.

Responsibility and respect
Gen Y thrive on the two R's - responsibility and respect. They like management styles that are consulting, involving and caching rather than authoritarian or directing. McCrindle points out that "Gen Y's yearn for recognition, and they have had longer than previous generations in a supportive education system that has provided this. Our studies show that they have grown up with a safety-net of support at home, in society, and through their education. And they expect that support to continue somewhat, even at work."

Jazz up your workplace
The physical working environment has a huge impact on the productivity, engagement and innovation of a Gen Y workforce. Not every organisation has budgets to assemble state of the art working spaces, and neither is this necessary. Simple and cost effective measures can make the work environment more interesting and stimulating. A good place to start with is an area that everyone uses - reception areas, kitchens, hallways, lifts etc. Bring into play visual stimulus that communicates not only the values of the organisation, but also makes the workplace more inviting and motivating - think posters, pictures, videos etc. Dr. Bettina von Stamm's Innovation Journal is littered with many suggestions and examples of workplaces varying their physical environments to engender productivity, engagement and innovation. She claims that organising a work place successfully leads to employees feeling well looked after, increasing their sense of security and productiveness.

Be realistic about their loyalty
Gen Y expect a two-way understanding when it comes to loyalty. According to McCrindle, Gen Y don't view leaving an organisation as an act of disloyalty but a simple life change and so they see no problem with returning should circumstances change. Be realistic about how long an employee will stay onboard as Gen Y will be most likely of all other employees to seek out new jobs, opportunities and experiences (be it work, study or travel). If your workplace provides the personal, stimulating and rewarding experiences that Gen Y demands they may come back at a later point. The introduction of a workplace alumni program will allow you to keep in touch with ex-employees and make them feel valuable.

Whilst some of Gen Y's traits may have management bemused, Gen Y has some unquestionably positive qualities they bring into any workforce. They are more self sufficient, open to change and able to learn new tasks quickly, in addition to being technically proficient and media savvy. This enables them to communicate across multiple platforms and technologies, which help employers grow and adapt to continuously changing technology and business conditions. Employers must adopt strategies to prompt productivity, engagement and retention of this generation and must re-evaluate their employee value proposition or risk losing the battle in the minds of Generation Y.

POSTED BY Wendy Ng

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TAGS: HR Advisory, Recruitment

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