“The key to attracting millennials is to develop a millennial mindset’

The ever changing workspace has thrown up a new set of challenges for HR teams. With millennials in the workplace, attrition and retention are topics HR teams have to continuously look at. Kameshwari Rao, Group Vice President, People Strategy, Sapient India talks about employee engagement, learning and more. Edited excerpts: turing of talent. The current evolving breed of talent, is constantly looking to innovate, experiment and explore varied opportunities. This “millennial workforce” wants to challenge the status quo and hence, look for ways in which they can do new things or do the existing ones differently. The key to attracting them is to develop a millennial mindset while scouting for potential hires.

For today’s young talent, getting an opportunity for “self-expression” and a work environment which enables them to “make a difference” can be potent in encouraging them to stay with the company. Traditional models of engagement generally don’t strike favourably with them and there’s a need to substantiate them with programs that augment innovation, to celebrate and recognize disruptive qualities. To attract this talent, companies need to break free from their old techniques of hunting job seekers and connect with millennials on their career portals and other recruitment marketing channels. There are many changes around us that include our environment, society, countries and technology. To keep pace with all these changes, employees need to develop a keen sense of ongoing and continuous learning. The role of HR is to create the content in the context of the company, to create access at the hands of the employee and to provide mentorship when requested by the employee. The other key influencer in the employees learning journey is the manager – it is the role of HR to equip the manager with the right skills and capabilities to enable them to grow their teams. At Sapient, we use a combination of content, access and partners to enable employees to achieve their L&D goals. Businesses across sectors have witnessed massive disruption thanks to the changing consumer needs caused by the influx of technology in our lives. Companies are increasingly reimagining their strategies and transforming themselves to become digital at the core. This changing land- scape has led to a rise in demand for talent that does not subscribe to the old ways of working in a traditional IT structure, but is forthcoming to embrace newer ways and technologies. In order to stay relevant in this disruptive market, professionals need to be multi-dimensional and upskill/reskill themselves to elude job redundancy. These ‘polyglots’, who represent a new breed of talent, possess deep understanding of the technology ecosystem, which helps them be tech agnostic, navigate ambiguous situations and collaborate with multiple teams for a common objective. One of the most important skill sets that companies seek today is learnability. With the pace of change as well as the direction of change being rapid, it is important that young professionals chart their own learning journeys. Besides this, it is also important to encourage collaboration, ability to deal with complexities, breaking down silos and co-creation, as key attributes to working in the multi dimensional environment. Heath & Wellness has become even more of a focus area for Sapient for the last few years. Keeping that in mind, we have crafted a wellness strategy, which is not limited to specific initiatives. It is designed in a way to be holistic, inclusive and create value in our fast changing demography that goes beyond providing what people need or expect from us.

Our Integrated Wellness Strategy is woven around the needs of millennials, specific work groups like women, young parents, differentlyabled, new hires & people in personal distress. Our people policies and programs includes all aspects of wellness - physical, nutritional, emotional and financial.