Time to turn to Gen Y for workforce

This trend poses a huge and potentially terminal threat to your organisation; namely not having enough people to keep the organisation going, let alone growing.
By 2020, Generation Y – those people born between 1980 and 2000 – will comprise one-third of the workforce. This in itself would be reason enough for your organisation to start working on a strategy to attract and integrate Gen Y into your workforce, but the really alarming data that needs to be considered alongside this is Thailand’s (and the world’s) rapidly decreasing birth-rate. This will lead to a significantly shrinking workforce in the same period.
To put it succinctly, by 2020 there is very likely to be a shortage of labour, and the labour that is in the market will be predominantly Gen Y. This means the power will have shifted to the job-seeker and away from the employer.
Gen Y will have the choice of who to work for, and you will be fighting every other potential employer on the market, not only for talent, but simply for enough people to keep the organisation viable.
So how can you attract and retain Gen Y?
APM has unique insight into the generations from our database of over 3,000 Thai people that have taken our personality and values assessments. An analysis of this data shows very clear differences between Gen Y and the older generations:

--Compared to other generations, members of Gen Y:
-Are significantly more outgoing, social and concerned for relationships and building networks
-Are spectacularly more collaborative and relationship-oriented. They expect their employers to care for them and others, are sensitive, easily upset and likely to quit rather than broach difficult topics
-Are more forward-thinking, strategic, risk-taking, creative and culturally open
-Enjoy informal, creative, physically attractive environments without hierarchy
-Are independent in thought but need significant levels of encouragement, positive feedback, and approval from senior figures whom they trust and who treat them with respect
-Need their ideas and opinions to be encouraged and valued, but will benefit from clear direction and the guiding hand of a “father figure”

You need to build and implement a strategy that is dedicated to attracting and retaining Gen Y talent, and I would like to share some simple tips of things you can and should be doing right now in order to secure your future human resources:

--Getting Ready for Gen Y

Preparing the environment
Be prepared to significantly overhaul performance management, rewarding, and career-planning systems. Gen Y expects to be given opportunities to contribute and to quickly reap the rewards of their successes.
Location is very important for Gen Y: a downtown location with great local services is not possible for everyone, but consider how you can redesign your offices to create the right tone of informality and creativity – and to promote collaboration.
--Baiting the hook
Go fishing – you can’t afford to wait for people to walk through the door. Engage with potential employees and cultivate talent from school age up.
Get Gen Y involved – make sure your recruitment and selection systems are designed and operated by Gen Y. Share videos on your website of Gen Y’s experiences, their first 100 days, and run open days with Gen Y ambassadors etc.
Get Connected – Gen Y people have grown up with fast, efficient service based around technology. They simply won’t have the patience for “old fashioned” and slow recruitment processes.
--Engaging and retaining
Provide them with challenging roles that offer variety, opportunities to harness technology, opportunities to work with others, and opportunities to earn and progress quickly.
Restructure your work planning to ensure that people have a work/life balance. This is a critical issue for Gen Y. Also, be flexible in work policies, allow people to work when it suits them and where it suits them.
Leverage mentoring programmes with the Baby-Boom Generation. This has the added advantage of helping to capture and preserve their knowledge as they start to exit the organisation.
Invest in supervisory and management development with Generation X. The biggest friction points are likely to occur here and Generation X has to quickly make the transition from task-focused management to relationship-focused management. Hold Gen X accountable for turnover – this really will be one of your key business performance metrics in the near future.
Promote collaboration in person and through technology. Gen Y expects to have access to social networking technology and are adept at multitasking. They are not wasting time, rather they are energised by staying in touch.
The workplace of 2020 will be radical-ly different and Gen Y will genuinely transform how we work. Indeed, their first impact is already underway as progressive, early-adopter firms implement their Gen-Y strategies. This is a trend you simply cannot afford to miss or be late turning on to. Unfortunately, I can barely begin to scratch the surface of this fascinating and crucial issue in a short article.

If you’d like to learn about building a strategy for Gen Y, please contact me at [email protected], Practice Group Leader, APMGroup.