Ajay Soni, Business Leader
Talent & Organisation Consulting, Hewitt Associates

The younger generation sees more happening in a year than used to happen in a decade. Today’s 20-somethings have seen India rise and become a global economic power, chaos descend on the stock market, the global digital revolution, the global financial crisis, The Indo-US nuclear deal, terror attacks in India and worldwide. These life experiences make them aim higher and faster, demanding flexibility and a wholesome life.

This is challenging traditional perceptions of recruitment: experience as the primary criterion for a job, the best practice mentality, traditional detailed planning and predictable 9-5 jobs. The workforce will need to change to be able to meet the life beliefs of these ‘Millennials’. Jobs and careers will need to be created for an individual at a time, coaching and support will take the place of boss-subordinate relationship and the organization culture will need to have collaboration across work units, geographies and hierarchies. Benefits, too, will need to have much higher level of flexibility.

The Old Order

Millennials are redefining the workplace dynamics in their own way and will bring about sweeping changes. Among areas that will be challenged are:

The tenure system: Experience and knowledge is no longer correlated with age, the new generation argues. They are iPod’ed, cell-phoned, globally travelled, socially networked, and multi-taskers. For the older generation, this is not just about being up to date with “what kids are up to nowadays” but also about the very competencies and technical skills today's marketplace demands. Who is better equipped to respond to the rapid changes in this uncertain world or more importantly, challenge the ‘status-quo’ and change the world?

The ‘best practice’ mentality: Millennial power rides on the speed in which knowledge doubles. It used to take centuries, now it’s only a matter of months. The older approach of “let me show you the best practices forged over time” is doomed to obsolescence simply because those practices worked in the past. Millennials operate in a just-in-time mode where a “best practice” lasts as long as the project does.

Traditional planning: Millennials live synchronous lives where inputs come from all over at all times and decisions are made accordingly. Instead of panning, they coordinate. Plans are fixed artifacts for a sequential world—in a multitasking, hyperconnected, everchanging world “plans” don’t hold up. The other day I overheard one of my colleagues say “I can’t confirm that I’ll be able to make it for lunch on Saturday – it’s possible my client’s CEO will be in town for a day and want to chat about the new development program, else I’m supposed to catch up with a friend who is in Bombay for 2 hours on her way from New York to Delhi. I’m definitely not free Saturday night as I’m flying out for my brother’s birthday on Sunday, but hold on a minute, maybe I can shift my flight to Sunday morning and manage to have dinner with you on Saturday.”

Taking orders: They want to be empowered: give us a problem to be solved and the right tools, they say, and we will figure it out. Paradoxically, they also want to be coached and mentored when needed. Command and control management is out. Coaching and collaborative management is in. “I love my job – the most interesting part about it is discovering, on my own, what new tool or approach will work best for what client. My boss doesn’t demand status updates everyday and, yet I love the fact that I can walk into his cubicle any time I’m stuck.”

Rigidity in time, space, job, and career: Where and when we work should not matter as long as the work gets done, they declare. Connecting, even thousands of miles away, is as easy as connecting face-to-face. Who I am, what I do, and the jobs and careers around me need to evolve iteratively and continuously, like software version releases. How will MyJob 1.0 evolve into MyJob 2.0? And so on.

The irony is that the current people practices were designed during a very different era. Benefits, performance management systems, and corporate cultures were designed to solve a different set of needs and problems for a very different workforce. The world is different today and corporations need to start making some fundamental changes to address the needs of today’s workforce. So, what are these changes?

The New Order

Designer Jobs and Careers: Work for this generation is about freedom and flexibility. They want to work hard, have fun as well as contribute at the work place. The world is a continuum with many experiences on offer, real time. The Millennial today wants to have this experience real-time in their jobs today. What’s interesting is that it’s not only that this generation demands this, it is also willing to bear the costs.

Jobs that look the same day after day, fixed in their definitions of roles and responsibilities, must go. Project-based jobs may better fit their aspiration of varied experiences. This generation will want to choose whom they work with across functions, geographies, and companies. Designer jobs, of course, take us to designer careers for the same reasons. Wanting to do something different, will take Millennials on what could seem like circuitous paths; be it parenting, community development, or trekking in Ladakh?

Culture of continuous coaching and support: Millennials expect to know how they are doing real-time, here and now. Tell me how I am doing today so I can change, innovate the next moment and move to better things. They cannot wait for a detailed metric driven once a year feedback. When it comes to development, Millennials expect attention. Managers, who give Millennials the freedom to decide how to work, give them ownership of projects, and stay in touch constantly but unobtrusively will motivate and get the best out of their young workers.

Mechanism of small but frequent promotions: Employers will do well by giving Millennials markers of achievement—frequently attainable goals and milestones, titles, new responsibilities, and small but frequent promotions. ‘Pay broadbanding structures’ that have workers slogging through years before a promotion is attained is bound to change.

Ultra-collaborative environments: In the Millennial social nerve system, all team members are connected to one another through cell phones, email, social networking pages, and mass media. Problem solving is a group effort, particularly since today’s technology makes instant collaboration possible. The Millennials want to be able to blog with the CEO on one side, discuss problems with a colleague on the other side and text with a client on the third side before creating a solution. At Hewitt, CEO Russ Fradin writes a blog that allows anyone across a nearly 23,000-strong global talent base to reply with affirmations, challenges, and new ideas. This mass collaboration within the organization leads to changes in policies and programs. And all this requires greater transparency and less spin.

Designer Benefits: Fixed benefits plans (even with the limited flexibility offered by cafeteria style design) will not be able to withstand these pressures and demands. “Give us a budget and diverse options and we will decide what best enables our multifaceted lives,” is this credo. Instead of a free physical, the twenty- something may opt for short-term paid sabbaticals every six months. Others may choose a paid community service day twice a month. Of course, corporations still have responsibility. Companies will need to reconstruct the interface to enable these options.

The organizations that want to be ahead in the marketplace and harness the immense opportunities this country is offering today will be the ones that will harness the Millennials the best to achieve business goals. These organizations will need to recognize the uniqueness of this generation and rejig the structures, processes and culture in a manner that the new workforce is able to deliver their best- for the organization and themselves. Or else tomorrow is theirs anyway, but someplace else.