Challenges in managing the Gen Y workforce

Research conducted by Stanford University at CTrip, a large Chinese company, showed that employees who participated in a ‘Work From Home’ trial showed a 13% increase in productivity and were 50% less likely to change jobs because of increased work satisfaction

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“The emerging workforce is not interested in command-and-control leadership. They don't want to do things because I said so, they want to do things because they want to do them.” – Irene Rosenfeld, CEO, Mondelez International

Enterprises are becoming global and as their interests expand across the world, they are faced with an increasingly heterogeneous workforce. The interests of workers around the world converge in some areas but in many ways they have different motivations and goals for themselves and this is a complexity their managers have to address to be able to lead effectively.

One of the key complexities that has entered the modern workforce is the rapidly changing dynamic created by the presence of young men and women. More than half of India’s population is under the age of 25 and as many as 65 percent are under the age of 35: A trend that reflects in the composition of the workforce as well. This skew is even greater in several industry sectors like high tech where Gen Y employees (the 20 to 25 age group) comprise as much as 60 percent of the global workforce.

Some of the preferences of this generation must be taken into account when devising plans and strategies to manage them.

• For one, they are more comfortable with digital technologies and adept at using them in all spheres of their lives, which includes work. The proliferation of devices like smart phones and tablets only feeds this digital habit.
• Secondly, recent research by furniture design firm Knoll suggested that Gen Y workers rated “having an engaging workplace” as the highest among the various features of an office. This substantiates a preference for more open and collaborative workplaces.
• Heather Schluck, author of The Working Mom Manifesto said: “You will never feel truly satisfied by work until you are satisfied by life”.  This may well represent another keen desire of the younger workforce: Work-life integration.
• Research shows that a Gen Y worker spends 20–25 percent of her work hours communicating or collaborating. That means the days of the lone worker toiling away in a cubicle is fated to end.

Research conducted by Stanford University at CTrip, a large Chinese company, showed that employees who participated in a ‘Work From Home’ trial showed a 13 percent increase in productivity and were 50 percent less likely to change jobs because of increased work satisfaction. Companies have been paying heed to such trends and as a result, flexible work arrangements are growing.

The other growing part of the workforce is remote, or field-based, employees who are not tied to a physical office. Market intelligence firm IDC suggests that by 2010 the worldwide Mobile Workforce was already one billion strong and this would grow to over 1.3 Billion this year. The more mobile workforce represents a set of management challenges unique in them.

An MTV Survey, intriguingly titled “The No-Collar Workforce”, brought out very clearly the social leanings of the new workforce: Eighty nine percent of the millennials surveyed want work to be social. It has been said that they want work to be “an experience” rather than just a source of funds. They are also always connected through their smart mobile devices.

One of the challenges that emerges from this behaviour is the perceived loss of productivity due to digital distractions.  There have been several studies on the impact of distractions and most seem to suggest that we lose around 30–40 percent of our work time in digital distractions. Combined with meetings, communications and other routine tasks this allows only around 35 percent of the time to be spent on core activities. There is a school of thought that the mind cannot multitask, but the questions today’s managers face could be: ‘Is the Millennial generation able to multitask and do they not see these as distractions?’ and ‘Is this 24x7 work and personal life integration the new way of work and is it healthy?’

The stage is set—clearly the workforce is changing in many ways, bringing in fresh challenges for the manager to deal with. The leader who wants to get the most out of the talent at hand will have to consider what matters to them and plan accordingly. Just as important will be the tools that will provide data to the manager to validate if this new way of working will last, or will it be back to the old ways, soon?

- By Shirish Deodhar, CEO & Co-Founder, Sapience Analytics

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.