India’s New HR Challenge: Managing a
Multigenerational Workforce
Diversity and inclusion have been
steadily gaining traction in corporate India in recent years. Much of this is
centered on gender diversity, and companies are beginning to realize the
business imperative of hiring women and creating an equitable work environment.
But there is another aspect that human resource managers in India need to wake
up to: The importance of effectively managing a multigenerational workforce.
One may argue that organizations
across the world have always had to manage a multigenerational workforce. While
that is true, India’s demographics are creating some unique challenges. Even as
the world is graying, India is getting younger. By 2020, the average Indian
will be only 29 years of age compared with 37 in China and the U.S., 45 in
Western Europe and 48 in Japan. Currently, more than half of India’s population
is less than 25 years of age.
“India has gone through more changes
in the past 20 years than most countries witness over a century.” –Amit K.
Nandkeolyar
Given India’s population of over a
billion, these make for very large numbers. What’s more, this large pool of new
workers comes with a mindset very different from that of the earlier
generations. Experts note that this difference between generations is far more
striking in India than elsewhere because of the country’s rapid pace of
liberalization and increasing globalization since the 1990s. India has also
leapfrogged through tremendous advances in technology, including the adoption
of mobile phones, the Internet and social media.
Adding to the Complexity
“India has gone through more changes
in the past 20 years than most countries witness over a century,” says Amit K. Nandkeolyar, assistant professor of organizational behavior at the
Indian School of Business. Pointing to India’s vast socio-economic and cultural
diversity, Nandkeolyar adds: “Employees come from different regions, religions,
linguistic traditions, castes, communities, culinary tastes, races and genders.
A generational difference adds another layer of complexity. This creates a
workforce that can find itself divided in more ways than comparable workforces
in most countries.”
Vishalli Dongrie, senior director at
consulting and services firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India, notes: “The
current generation in India entering the workforce has seen abundance in
options and affluence early in life. They are also more independent and more
aware of global opportunities. This is reflected in the decreasing loyalty
toward their employers and the increasing focus on short-term goals. Globally,
the shift has not been so pronounced.”
Puja Kohli, an independent human resources
consultant, points to another aspect: The dissonance between the home
environment and the workplace. Kohli observes that parents in India have become
far more open to including their children in decision making — what kind of
house to live in, what make of car to buy, where to go on a holiday and so on —
but the workplace continues to be in a “plan, control and review” mode. “This
results in conflict and disengagement at the workplace,” says Kohli.
Last year, Kohli conducted a study
titled, “Managing in a Multigenerational Workplace,” in collaboration
with the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom). The
objective of this study was to understand the competencies needed to manage
millennials in the information technology/information technology enabled
services (IT/ITeS) sector, which is among the largest recruiters of youth in
India. More than 60% of the employees in this sector are less than 30 years of
age.
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In her study, Kohli focused
primarily on five areas: Values, interpersonal relationships, commitment, work
ethics and world view. Kohli notes: “The need to build skills and competencies,
and freedom and empowerment are the topmost priorities for the youth in this
sector, followed by recognition and appreciation.” Interestingly, the need for
freedom and empowerment spans a host of issues: vocabulary, dress code,
flex-time, work-life balance, use of social media and so on.
Dilpreet Singh, vice president of
human resources at IBM India & South Asia, observes: “This is a generation
that is not hierarchical in its outlook. It respects competencies and knowledge
and not so much authority that simply comes with age or position.” And herein
lies the rub: In most organizations, policies are created by a group of senior
people who don’t understand the mindset of the youth. Som Mittal, who until
recently was president of Nasscom, says: “We find that the gap between the
traditional outlook of people who are taking decisions and those who are
getting impacted by these decisions is increasing. This is resulting in a
mismatch.”
Building a ‘Salsa Culture’
What is at stake if this gap
continues to increase? Last year, Deloitte and the Confederation of Indian
Industries released a report titled, “Gen Next Workforce Study, 2013.” Based on
its findings, Deloitte’s Dongrie says: “The evolving preferences of the current
generation [in India] pose perplexing challenges for organizations looking at
attracting, engaging and retaining them.” According to Dongrie, if
organizations don’t address the issues arising out of a multigenerational
workforce, it can result in “a lower engagement rate, loss in productivity and
a higher attrition rate.” It could also lead to a “situation of unrest among
the workforce. Ultimately, the output from the investment in human capital will
be much lower than its true potential.”
“Firms must develop a greater
awareness of what [influences] shape each cohort, without stereotyping.”
–Saundarya Rajesh
If organizations don’t take
appropriate steps, “they will lose out on the best talent and what it can do
for them,” Singh of IBM notes. “They will lose out on new ideas. This will
severely impact an organization’s competitiveness. At a national level, India
will lose out on the human resource that can take it forward.”
So what is it that companies need to
do? According to ISB’s Nandkeolyar, firms must emphasize the commonalities that
bind all employees together and deemphasize the differences, especially in
terms of age and experience. “We need to understand, celebrate and encourage
diversity in workplace. This will help all employees to work toward a common
goal.” According to Mittal of Nasscom, the generational gap can be bridged
through constant dialogue. “We need to break hierarchical boundaries and
involve all generations of employees in decision making.”
Nirmala Menon, founder and CEO of
Interweave Consulting, which focuses on diversity management and inclusivity in
the workplace, believes that senior employees need to be more open to making
adjustments and changes since the workforce and the workplace will now be
increasingly defined by younger employees. “It’s more a mindset issue than
chronological age. One needs to be open to accepting differences, whatever they
may be. A one-size-fits- all approach will not work,” she says.
According to Subhro Bhaduri,
executive vice president at Kotak Mahindra Bank, companies need to provide
“high clarity, sharp direction, in-depth job knowledge and abundant skills” to
their young employees, along with keeping them abreast of the latest
developments in their industry. “The current generation is keen to know what
they are doing, why they are doing it and what they would derive from the
same,” Bhaduri says. “The new workforce is also keen to get variety in roles
and functional areas in order to remain excited about work. In addition, there
is an increased aspiration level and corresponding growth expectations which
have to be managed.”
Saundarya Rajesh, HR professional
and founder-director of Avtar Careers Creators and Flexi Careers India,
suggests that organizations must invest in building “generational competence” —
that is, “firms must develop a greater awareness of what [influences] shape
each cohort without stereotyping.” According to Rajesh, organizations must work
toward developing a “salsa culture, which is a sum of many parts and where each
part retains its unique identity.” Rajesh adds that organizations also must
“target the right talent strategies to the right set of employees.”
Defining Non-negotiables
Some companies are starting to
address this issue. At IBM, for instance, in keeping with the younger
generation’s preference for using their own devices at work, employees are
allowed to bring these to the workplace. These devices are allowed be connected
to the organization’s IT systems after ensuring due security measures. IBM also
has its own internal social networking platform where employees can raise
queries, post their views and interact with colleagues without having to go
through the traditional organizational hierarchy. “This is a media that the new
generation identifies with strongly, and it has made quite a difference in
managing the workforce. [Employees] can reach out to anyone anytime they want
without having to go through their immediate boss,” says Singh.
“The core values of the organization
must be non-negotiable. Everything else that can be accommodated, should be.”
–Nirmala Menon
At HCL, initiatives include being
more interactive on social media at the time of recruitment, the use of the
gamification to motivate workers, an increased emphasis on change management,
and ensuring that training methodologies are more aligned to the ways of the
young employees. “For instance, the one-to-many training is not easily
adaptable to the way the newer generation likes to learn,” says Naveen
Narayanan, lead of talent acquisition, development and mobility at HCL. “The
technologies that some of these youngsters experience for free outside of work
is perhaps more savvy than what they have within the workplace. We need to be
conscious of this and devise new ways of interacting with them.”
Santosh Singh, talent acquisition
director for the Asia Pacific region at construction and mining equipment firm
Caterpillar, notes that a major challenge of a multigenerational workforce is
to move away from stereotypes and engage with employees as individuals. “We
encourage and position our supervisors and managers to get to know their
employees better and to understand and champion their aspirations,” he says.
But this raises another pertinent
question: How can an organization maintain its culture and at the same time
address the needs and aspirations of different generations at the workplace?
IBM’s Singh says that the answer lies in ensuring that there is no compromise
when it comes to the core values of the organization. “Our values are what bind
us together. While we may be flexible in many areas, there is no compromise on
this. We work hard at ensuring that these core values are understood and
imbibed by every new generation that comes in.” Menon of Interweave agrees:
“The core values of the organization must be non-negotiable. Everything else
that can be accommodated, should be.”
According to Kohli, in order to be
effective and impactful, the initiatives around the multigenerational workforce
must be part of the top management’s agenda. “It must be addressed not only by
HR teams or diversity groups but also by business heads.” Pointing out that in
most companies in India the awareness of the challenges of a multigenerational
workforce is still at a very nascent stage, she adds: “If organizations don’t
awaken to this issue fast and take the necessary steps, they will become
cultural dinosaurs and lose their best talent and their competitive edge.”
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/indias-new-hr-challenge-managing-multigenerational-workforce/
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