Managing the Talent of Today

Steve Barden of Epic Consulting asks some key questions and provides some answers and tips on how organisations can prepare and manage for the new generation of workers. More…

In this highly competitive business environment, organisations recognise that the differentiator is their people. Those organisations that are winners in the battle for talent have their fingers on the pulse of this newest generation. They design specific techniques for recruiting, managing, motivating, training and retaining them.

Finding, developing and retaining good employees is crucial and having an integrated talent management strategy should be a key foundation for any HR organisation. At its heart, the strategy has to focus on making employees feel supported, encouraged and challenged in ways appropriate to their particular needs, if it is to ensure this future talent is going to demonstrate any loyalty.

Although creativity and flexibility in employment terms and conditions plays a part, a big incentive opportunity is the training culture of the organisation. How that provides a positive approach to development, encourages personalised learning and offers career enhancement for all will be significant elements of how talented people view your organisation, and ultimately will have a big impact on how long they will stay with you.

And when they do decide to leave – or retire – what is in place to ensure their knowledge is not lost? Millions of ‘baby boomers’ (born 1940-1960) are retiring. As they walk out the door, they take with them invaluable skills, knowledge, experience and relationships that have contributed to the success of your organisation. What succession procedures – and incentives to ensure they are followed – have you got in place to ensure the knowledge transfers over a sensible period of time?

‘Generation X’ (1960-1980) are in mid career and need to be aware of the incoming workers who they are managing. The ‘Millennial’ (1980-2000) are the new, ‘NOW!’ generation (also called Generation Y, Internet Generation or Echo Boomers), and they are entering the workforce - your workforce. They have a different mindset as to what their career should be - and it’s likely that it won’t be as an employee for life.

This NOW! generation is as different from their Generation X managers as is possible. They’re also a sought after commodity. The demographic time-bomb, caused by low birth rates, is starting to bite and we need these guys to learn fast and look after us earlier in their careers.

What are Millennials like?

The Millennial Generation are charged with potential and are likely to have values around the idea of the global village, fair trade, organic food, environmental protection and serving the community. They’re also highly ambitious, better-educated, collaborative team players and, most importantly, influential. They are arriving in your workforce with higher expectations than any generation before them - and they’re so well connected that, if an employer doesn’t match those expectations, they can tell thousands of their cohorts with one click of the mouse.

How do this ‘NOW!’ generation choose a career, and why? How will they change the workplace as we know it today? What is their work ethic? What is unique about them? And most importantly, how do the best managers communicate with and motivate them?

How do Millennials want to work and learn?

Their world is a world of digital abundance, whether it’s information or entertainment. They are used to handling this abundance, used to finding, filtering and being entertained. The internet is not new technology, it’s like the fridge or car – just there. Marc Prensky calls them ‘digital natives’ as opposed to the older generations who are the ‘digital immigrants’.
They’re connected and communicative. There’s been an explosion of social software tools that make the communication simple: email, instant messaging, texting obviously, but also wikis and blogs as well as share spaces like MySpace and Facebook. All of these make the sharing of information and opinions simple. This generation exist in smart groups held together by constant communications. They prefer the computer to the TV and prefer messaging to telephone chats.
They expect work to be creative and fun and value the social environment of work as much as career prospects. Their expectations for financial rewards to feed their high-octane lives will be acute. In other words, expectations of their work environment are enormous and their confidence can be alarming.

Learning is important but they expect a more challenging, technologically-driven approach, which is collaborative, fun and interesting. They don’t need too much training in IT skills; the web augments their own knowledge with search tools like Google providing the ‘fingertip learning’ when and wherever they need it. They recognise the half-life of knowledge is dwindling and they ‘know-where’ rather than ‘know-how’. They are powerful in filtering what they need to know.

As blended learning techniques mature and learning technologies becomes more powerful and adaptive, the ‘NOW!’ learners need to be intrigued and incentivised as learning competes with other activities in their busy lives. Organisations need to be more clever with the invitation to learn; the use of viral marketing, for example, to capture attention in all areas of their busy and connected lives. Collaborative learning environments foster and build on this attitude. Proper learning design ensures their needs are considered throughout the development cycle and guarantees better usage; thus ultimately improving any RoI metric.

All of this may seem like stereotyping and every generation sees the next as a bunch of self-obsessed, ‘I want it NOW! , lazy ne’er do wells. Your baby boomer executives and trainers are working with Generation X’ers who are managing Millenials.

How do we deal with this?

So, if you want to attract, retain, and motivate these Millennials, here are ten tips for making your learning culture and management style more motivating for your talent.

1. Have a positive, personalised learning culture. This includes the provision of broad but focused content, in manageable chunks, fully accessible whenever and wherever it’s needed.
2. Make it personal. It’s about making sure individuals buy-in to their own development and are given the signposts and coaching support to make it work for them.
3. Make sure the learning doesn’t stop. Lifelong learning must be demonstrated through positive role models at every level and every stage of employment. Making the transfer of knowledge and experience part of succession plans and a positive experience is important for the individuals concerned but is vital for the organisation.
4. Actively encourage knowledge networks. Make sure there is a time and place for people to exchange ideas, show best practice and reward innovation.
5. Be a high-integrity leader. This generation has grown up with structure and supervision, with parents who epitomised achievement. Millennials are looking for leaders with honesty and integrity. It’s not that they don’t want to be leaders themselves, they’d just like some great role models first.
6. Provide fair challenge. Millennials want learning opportunities. They want to be assigned to projects they can learn from. They’re looking for growth, development, a career path.
7. Let them work with friends. Millennials say they want to work with people they click with. They like being friends with co-workers. Employers who provide for the social aspects of work will find those efforts well rewarded by this newest cohort. Some companies are even interviewing and hiring groups of friends.
8. Let them have fun. A little humour, a bit of silliness, even a little irreverence will make your work environment more attractive.
9. Respect them. “Treat our ideas respectfully,” they ask, “even though we haven’t been around a long time.”
10. Be flexible. The busiest generation ever isn’t going to give up its activities just because of jobs. A rigid schedule is a sure-fire way to lose your Millennial employees.