How can young employees plan their careers
A transformation of the employment pattern and the current scenario of employment in India is underway from long-term employment to short-term engagement in the form of contract and temp staffing.
The world of work is changing. And so are the turnover rates. Technology is disrupting the entire ecosystem of work and the business landscape. And companies are gradually embracing the change. Not only the employers, but workers too are no more hesitant to experiment with their ways of working. The dearth of skilled talent is further worsened by the increasing rate of voluntary attrition. While the junior employees are skilling up themselves to match the new age job roles, they tend to switch jobs for a better paycheck.
With so many new jobs coming up every other day, thanks to the technological disruption, automation, etc., retaining employees has become a genuine concern. While companies are now going all out to pay for the right talent, it’s not always the monetary incentive that keeps the employees engaged or happy. A strong culture, especially led by leadership and management, which demonstrates career progression, awareness, work-life balance, empathy, and respect goes a long way.
WHAT DO EMPLOYEES WANT?
Meaningful work, clear career path, work-life balance. That’s what employees want today.
Candidates, in a word, are driving the employment market now and are becoming increasingly picky about which company they want to work for, due to the abundance of information at their fingertips, such as Glassdoor, PayScale, FB, etc.
Today’s digital workforce is flexible, enabled with powerful AI-driven devices that talk to each other, update automatically and are easy to set up. On the run virtual meetings are now the basic norm of the millennials. Evolution of workplace owes a lot to the technology advancements. Not just that. With the millennials and Gen Z redefining the way of work, prioritizing how they want to work, the workforce has evolved manifolds and this has an obvious impact on the employer as well.
Are the employers geared up well to nurture these focused and flexible Gen Z workers?
RECREATING THE EMPLOYER BRAND
Evolution of workplace is happening at a rapid pace transforming the way organizations operate: hiring more people, creating more jobs and upskilling and retraining their employees so that they have the best workforce they need to succeed. The conventional practice of a management-driven approach, which seemed one-sided, has been taken over by an employeedriven method, putting the spotlight on the employee. Employers are therefore thinking actively about employer branding to attract and retain talent. Assessing employees for current capabilities goes a long way in placing the right person in the right role.
TRAINING AND UPSKILLING
Companies are becoming more people-centric, understanding their employees and putting them in the right skilling program to ensure employees are motivated, more engaged, and productive.
Automation is turning corners and robots are being added in the workforce. But this doesn’t mean human workers are redundant now. In fact, 76% of the Indian employers plan to increase their headcounts as a result of increasing confidence in automation. And why not, automation is the deciding factor for what skills companies need from their employees. The change is rapid and the gap between the demand and skill is broadening by the day.
Upskilling is now scaling up. 52% of employers plan to upskill their current workforce unlike 21% in 2011. It’s a big leap, as according to the recent report as of March 22, 2019, in the ManpowerGroup’s Skills Revolution report, the latest one from the Skills Revolution Series –a quantitative research surveying 19,417 employers across 6 industry sectors in 44 countries.
ENGAGING EMPLOYEES (AND KEEPING THEM)
It’s a fact that engaged workers and happy workers. They are more dedicated and more productive. And keeping the millennials and Gen Z workers engaged is not an easy task for the employers.
Working for the sake of a purpose is what excites the millennials. Therefore, clear career goals and solid milestones are what employers MUST furnish them with. A higher purpose in work, such as serving the community, creating better work-life balance, individual wealth creation, helping people in need make the new-gen workers feel valued.
The young generation changes jobs more frequently, so a well-defined career progression should be fast enough to match their expectations.
NURTURING IN-HOUSE TALENT
Millennials share a third of the total workforce in India (27% globally) and the numbers are growing. With these statistics, it is imperative that the employers strategize in identifying and nurturing the talent in order to foster and retain them. During this 4th industrial revolution, it’s time companies revisited their policies and rationalize them to dismantle the process and create a culture of responsibility and freedom as both run hand in hand. The talent that is nurtured, engaged, motivated is automatically responsible and becomes the brand ambassador of the organization. Leaders have a pivotal role to play in implementing this radical change in the perspective of the management. Once the leaders open up to unlearn the old and embrace the new, the world of work will be in better hands.