Adapt or Die

by Talentese Team 15/09/2017

Even if many people seem to don’t like it, the Generation Y (or Millennials) is a reality. By 2020 the Millennials will represent 40% of the workforce worldwide.

The people belonging to this generation are bound together by the fact that they have lived a severe financial crisis, they have been the first to experience a drastic technological change and they are more into a global network than their predecessors.

Now they’re in the workplace, and it should be no surprise that they are working differently too. But too often those different behaviours at work are simply considered as lazy stereotypes.

The (hard) truth is that organizations will have to adapt to it, like it or not, because these people want to work at the most desirable employers. Otherwise they will lack qualified people and they will die.

Inevitably this represents a great challenge for companies and it’s not an easy task, since this change is impacting society in a way barely seen before.

The first thing considered by many companies is to take the jobs that they have open, make them look attractive and use this technique to get people on board. This strategy works in many cases, but usually, a few months after the recruitment, if the company proposition was not authentic, the people will inevitably leave this job, causing damages to the company reputation and a huge lack of engagement to the person leaving the job.

The companies should face reality and start approaching this subject completely different. Millennials don’t just want to have a nice job offer. They look for a whole life experience. And in terms of companies, they look for Millennial friendly companies.

This might be challenging to understand for older generations, mostly driven by strong hierarchies and a culture where people don’t usually express their feelings in front of superiors. But Millennials don’t sit in a desk 10 hours a day pretending to be busy in front of the boss. They tend to see a bigger picture, and they are not shy about telling what they really expect from their companies and their managers.

Last but not least, a recent study conducted worldwide recently published that there is an underlying behavior common to all Millennials: Millennials would like to be their own boss. The companies must understand what this means and act in consequence.

Of course, when working for a company, not everybody can be their own boss, but what companies really can do is to create entrepreneurial cultures within their own organizations to keep people feeling engaged and accountable for relevant projects.

Being your own boss means that you work where and when you want as long as you deliver your job correctly.

Therefore freedom, flexibility and accountability are key words to create the perfect work-life balance really appreciated by the Generation Y.