Blurring Lines A View of Millennials in the Technology Sector
Research tells us that a Gen Y person on an average spends 1.6 hours Texting, 1.5 hours Instant Messaging and 1.3 hours on social networking sites, Sounds alarming. These changing trends and behaviors bring in huge implications to organizations. This article discusses these issues in depth. Lines are rapidly getting blurred between what is seen as public and private information, quick information available via Google or You Tube reduces the need for depth and high dependence on technology reduces human interaction. Millenials are too large a group to ignore. Therefore, managers and HR departments need to leverage these trends to adapt to this new generation. This article makes practical recommendations such as incorporating more media rich training content and discusses new concepts such as "reverse mentoring" Too Large a Group To Ignore T he employees under thirty years of age represent a very large chunk of the demographically young India. This group will be the largest contributor to the global labor force in the coming decades, and will add about 110 million workers by 2020, a study by Goldman Sachs on India's rising labor force has said. Between 2010 2030, India will add 241 Million people in working age population; Brazil will add around 18 million, while China will add a meager 10 million people during the same time. The tech savvy millennials of India and China seem to be ahead of their Western counterparts based on the variety of ways in which they use technology for their work as well as for their social needs according to new research from Accenture based on more than 5,000 students and young workers in 13 countries around the world. Not surprising that the technology sector draws the largest number About the Author Abhijit Bhaduri works as the Chief Learning Officer for the Wipro group. Prior to this he led HR teams at Microsoft, PepsiCo, Colgate and Tata Steel and worked in India, SE Asia and US. Abhijit has written two works of fiction which have been on several bestseller lists. He writes a popular blog at http: abhijitbhaduri.com <http:/abhijitbhaduri.com/ where he writes on Management, Music and Books. He can be followed on twitter at http:/twitter.com/abhijitbhaduri. He has acted in a movie and in several plays staged in India, Malaysia and US. 12_BLURRING LINES.p65 10/20/2011, 12:48 PM 59 60 October 2011 NHRD Network Journal of employees from the Millennials today. Organizations in the IT/ITES sector are the largest employers of this generation and that is likely to continue. Presently 65 70% of workforce in most companies in this sector comprises millennials in the age group 20 30 years. They are managed by a generation of older managers who have a completely different world view. Out of the 125,000 employees of Wipro, more than 60% of employees are in their twenties. What Makes Millennials Different Technology shapes the way we view the world. These "digital natives" (born after 1980) grew up with the Net. You see them seamlessly multitasking all the time. They have submitted assignments for school and college by surfing the net, they watch movies, play games, and listen to music and text messages in a language that is cryptic. This tech savvy generation picks up how to tips from YouTube. Answers to everything from how to tie a necktie when you go for an interview to tips on "model answers" to tricky interview questions like, "Why are manhole covers round?" can be found on the net (try it! They have 400 "friends" on Facebook and use the status updates on social network sites to broadcast every small detail of their life continuously. Technology has made sure they get instant responses to everything. They study, work, write, and interact with each other in ways that are very different from the ways that the people who supervise them in the office. They read blogs rather than newspapers. They often meet each other online before they meet in person. They communicate through text messages on Smartphones rather than emails. The changing nature of human relationships is second nature to some, and learned behavior to others. When the Millennials enter the workplace, they come in with different expectations that their managers find hard to comprehend. They get most of their knowledge from peers and from online sites. They learn more by using video rather than textbooks. Imagine the frustration of a person who discovers that the company policy blocks the use of social networking sites. The transition to the first job is often a huge transition that they are unable to fathom. The IT policies of most employers are seen to be archaic in the eyes of Millennials. Their definition of information security, privacy, loyalty and work style is different from the views of the older employees who manage them. Blur 1: Public vs Private The line between what is private information and what is public is blurred in the minds of the Millennials who routinely share details of their relationships and breakups on Facebook. The photos of the weekend party are posted for all to see. Therefore they are often surprised when they are pulled up by their manager for sharing proprietary information about policies and compensation or even their tiffs with their managers with their social circle. IT policies of many employers in the tech sector are now allowing employees to bring their own device. I have seen many a manager expressing dismay about a millennial sending an informal text message full of cryptic abbreviations to appraise a client about the project just the way they keep friends informed about the change in the movie timings! While social networks have made job searches very easy, it is also easy for employers to check the online presence of a potential employee before offering a job. In the same way, the disgruntled employees can damage the reputation of a giant corporation by posting their experiences on a blog. Blur 2: Depth vs Breadth 1. The access to technology and the ability to search answers to anything instantaneously for this connected generation has created a generation that values variety and a short interaction 12_BLURRING LINES.p65 10/20/2011, 12:48 PM 60 October 2011 NHRD Network Journal 61 in everything they do. To have someone then sit through an hour long departmental meeting could be sheer torture. The speed of being able to find answers through technology has perhaps made it easy for Millennials in the Tech sector to adjust to the demands of short term projects. They find it easier to work on projects that give them a short burst of exposure to a new challenge, maybe even a new client's work and in a few months to move to another assignment. This throws up another challenge in the workplace where they have to wait for 18 24 months before they are eligible to apply for a formal job rotation. For the moment they are interested in gathering a kaleidoscope of experiences but that is not giving them enough opportunity to build depth of knowledge and insight that comes from repeating a task in a variety of situations to understand what causes the variation in the outcome. Blur 3: Human vs Technology The greatest strength of this demographic chunk lies in their comfort with technology. The interactions with peers have one common characteristic. They are brief, abbreviated and mostly not face to face. The book Born Digital says, "They have created a 24/7 network that blends the human with the technical to a degree we haven't experienced before, and it is transforming human relationships in fundamental ways. They feel as comfortable in online spaces as they do in offline ones." This makes them far more suitable for roles that do not need a lot of interaction in the real world. While they find it easy to collaborate using technology, when they are put in tasks that need soft skills like persuading, convincing and negotiating, they need more coaching and training before they learn to read verbal and non verbal cues. Technology has made them addicted to feedback. Millennials want regular communication, no matter how it's delivered. Robert Half International and Yahoo! HotJobs polled more than 1,000 Millennials and found that over 60 percent wanted to hear from managers at least once a day. THE MANAGERS' VIEW OF