“Millenials” a new term started appearing in recent years in articles, seminars and corporate talks. Who are these? Millenials refer to a generation of people who are born between the year 1980 and 2000. They are the people who would be the first generation to join the workforce in the new millennium. They are also called as “Generation Y”. Perhaps because of social economic environment and technology advancements, this generation is very different than the previous generations. (Which of the previous generations do not say this! Generation Gap, right!)
India is expected to become the youngest country by 2022, with an average age of 29. Being the largest generation in history, millennials have become the juggernaut that can wield immense influence on the way businesses are run – Economic Times
Now the workforce would start having dominant percentage of millenials. It is important for an aspiring HR professional who wants to pursue or is pursuing a distance MBA in HR management to know more about this millennial generation.
Let us look at some of the very peculiar characteristics of millennials.
Tech Savvy
Millenials are tech savvy as they have grown up with internet and mobile phones. They communicate and connect with people using social media, text messaging etc. They are continuously hooked to the internet. It would be impossible for them to imagine the world with technology like internet and smart phones.
They expect daily chores to be automated by technology to the maximum extent possible.
Multitaskers
Millennials are expert multi-taskers. They would always want to juggle between many tasks at the same time so that it would be easy for them to manage the time in more efficient way.
Instant gratification and Recognition
Millennials need to feel that what they are doing is important. They look for instance gratification. If they have done some good work, they expect that it should be praised/rewarded publically. It is important for recruiting team to understand this trait. Millennials should be explained their role while joining the company. They should get a sense that the position they are being hired for is important and how they can contribute to the growth of the company.
Easy to Collaborate
In the today’s world of fast changing technologies it is difficult to imagine someone who can know everything. Teamwork is must and millennials seem to be perfect fit. They are people-oriented in their approach and are easily able to establish relationships with co-workers of different gender, country, and language at the workplace. They are happy to work with anyone who can get the job done well.
Result-oriented
Millennial are ambitious and result-oriented. They hate wasting time. These set of people have very high expectations from employers and do not hesitate to question the authorities. They always keep seeking challenging work.
They expect evaluation & promotion of their work to be based on the outcomes they produce and not based on age, time spent at the desk, years of experience, or position (Alsop 2008; Hill 2002).
Millennials are interested in processes and services that work well and speed their interactions.
Driven by passion and look for meaning
If you observed previous generation, mainly job was way of earning livelihood and was seldom connected with passion. Very few people were able to convert their passion into means of earning the livelihood. Millennials are little different in this context.
It is very difficult to motivate them if they find that the work in not enough inspiring or related to their passion. They look for meaning in everything they do. They expect to know real impact of their work on business or their contribution.
With conducive environment, millennials are passionate set of workers who want to live their life fullest. They do not leave any stone unturned to make it happen.
Prone to job hopping
Today no one wants to work for a single company for his entire life. Skilled human resources are in demand and project tenures are getting shorter. Projects are getting executed with the help of technology which can facilitate collaboration amongst the experts coming from different geographies, countries, languages and culture. Millennials can easily work this situation to their advantage.
As millenials wants to live to the fullest extent, they look for various kinds of experiences and want to purse their passion. It would not be very easy to get them stick to one job or company for years. You will find them changing jobs and roles more frequently than previous generations.
Distance MBA in HR management: Why care about Millennials
You may be or may not belong to millennial generation. However, as a student of distance MBA in HR management you need to be aware of changing environment and employee expectations. This will help an aspiring HR management professional like you to create and deploy better strategies for retaining and nurturing talent which is a very key aspect for the growth of the business.
