Managing the millennials

“We were very well behaved and we played by the rules. They will not,” says Patricia Milligan, with a laugh, talking about the millennial generation as part of the workforce. In Chennai earlier this week to speak at Nasscom's HR Summit on ‘Managing talent across an internationally mobile workforce', Milligan, President (Human Capital) at Mercer Inc, spoke to Business Line. Anupam Prakash, Partner and Regional Leader, Cross Border Consulting, who was also present, gave us the India perspective on issues.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the millennials?

Their strengths are many. My view is that they're incredibly resourceful, intellectually very curious, hardworking and have a deep commitment to community and I call it the greater good. So many, many positive attributes.

Challenges, I think … they are very impatient and if you looked at the comments I made about transparency, control and velocity — they don't tolerate fools, they want you to be very clear and share information; they want to have more control than most generations about their careers … so they really want to define their own level of velocity as they move through their careers. In India, China, Brazil, Canada, it isn't that different.

Would these challenges pose a problem for a stable workforce?

That's a very difficult question to generalise from. I think your experience in India may be more different from stable and developed markets. There's a myth the millennials want to change jobs regularly and our research shows that in stable economies, that is not true. If you look at the average length of service of millennials, say, in consumer products, in financial services, it's actually going up, not down.

They actually are more like boomers, they're more like us, they like loyalty, they do have commitment, they've got a sense of responsibility as long as you're delivering on the value proposition they want.

Prakash: While it's true that people are moving, that's just a function of the economy, the opportunities. It's more about supply and demand. What we see is a temporary phenomenon generated by the huge demand for talent. The next new company actually goes out of its way to hire people … we actually poach. It's jokingly said companies post a board outside their office saying, ‘Trespassers will be hired'.

Intelligent organisations see the whole thing as an internal labour market — within your own companies, there are so many resources, so many subsidiaries, so many opportunities to move them about … if Indian companies look at career mapping, movement, experience and keep the millennials amused with job opportunities, they will control attrition. Many times people leave because they're bored, not for the money.

Milligan: I do think the hi-tech industry in India is going to have to define lateral mobility. We've got this huge population of people who really want to know, “What can I aspire to do?” We see it across so many of our clients who have global technology sourcing centres. They've got sales, marketing, consulting and yet they are not career mapping. They'll have two facilities right next to each other, in the same city, and they don't think about career mapping between the two. Eventually, I think they'll have to do it. As the biggest companies in India build capabilities in Europe, in the US, Indian workers will want to have those experiences. You can make them global citizens whereas right now you're making them citizens of one street across the other.

You spoke about velocity. Don't you need to gather experience?

They want the ability to speed the velocity. A good example: take traditional competency models that say how long have you been in this job, what competencies did you need and have you demonstrated them and if so, you are ready to be promoted. The millennials would say, honestly, promote me in advance of that, allow me to learn those skills in a faster, more impactful way — that's why that career map — the employees can actually bid on future roles, you can do the assessment and say I'm missing these competencies but then I (the employee) can in my own time take training courses, pass certification, I can show that I'm acquiring those competencies and get promoted if I demonstrate those in my job. That's very different from traditional career advancement.

Highly sophisticated sectors such as energy and natural resources, pharmaceuticals, financial services are all changing those models. (Otherwise) you will lose the millennials. They will not wait. They will not play by the rules. (laughs)

Where do older people figure in an organisation?

When I said you should really have a talent map, the highly seasoned, technical worker is going to be critical to the future of the company. There are simply not enough workers, you simply can't let the 55-year-olds leave your workforce. You're going to need them, but to work differently, in projects, in leadership roles. In developed markets such as Canada, the US, the UK, one of the biggest sources of employable workers are retirees, retired military, retired teachers … You can spend a lot of time on milliennials, but you can't afford to have people like Anupam and me leave the workforce. You just don't have enough skilled workers. And the question is, “Can really great organisations accommodate all those generations?” Someone presented a slide saying there were five generations of people working together in their organisation, so that's pretty cool.

Prakash: Where do you see this intergenerational interaction? With parents, there's a generation gap in style, behaviour, kids want to be with their friends, but work is creating this opportunity for people to work together.

Milligan: Everyone talks about the Googles. I think Google's got it easier because they're really uni-dimensional … they have a few of my generation running things, but 70-80 per cent of their organisation is all in the same (age group) … Eventually, you are not going to be able to grow if you can't keep us — I don't think you can build future companies out of just millennials. All the studies on diversity — multi-cultural, male-female, age, socio-economic … it's been proven diverse teams outperform homogenous teams and the highest performing companies right now, they take advantage of that diversity.

COMMENT NOW