A disrupted talent landscape and the rise of the millennials, who will make up 75% of the workforce by 2020, have become the challenging new reality for employers and businesses.
Meeting this challenge successfully will require a new strategic Human Resources plan that can help retain employees and foster loyalty. Hence, let’s look at some of the approaches to engaging and retaining the talent of tomorrow.
How can employers transcend traditional paradigms of retaining and attracting workers? Most importantly, they must understand the millennial mindset and what is important to millennial workers. Also, they must treat each talent as an individual. Don’t assume that someone will fit some usual stereotype.
A lack of understanding of what employees really want is one reason why many employers might be struggling to attract talent. In practice, try to understand them as individuals, what motivates them, what frustrates them, and what it takes to keep them engaged.
Many Generation Y workers, we are learning, are characterised by passion, a global perspective, entrepreneurialism, spontaneity, a social conscience, technological proficiency and so on. They are eager to show their value, but reluctant to sacrifice their time or personal ideologies to do so. In fact, this is a generation that will simply refuse to sell its soul to an employer to make quick earnings.
The second approach that I find crucial for engaging and retaining millennial talent is to coach them, not to control them. Autonomy and the freedom to work their way through ups and downs are more desirable to them than being told how to do things. They want to be inspired, developed and challenged by good leaders rather than be micro-managed.
Therefore, it is no wonder that Gen Y talents prefer to be coached and mentored rather than strictly supervised.
As well, this is the generation that wants to see how their work contributes to the bigger picture and they want to see results fast. They are high achievers who are willing to work hard on delivering their promises to you, so make sure you don’t make promises that you can’t deliver if you wish to retain them. Recognising positive contributions and celebrating successes works, whereas false promises are risky.
In this sense, if promotion is not readily available, more often than not, there is a high chance Gen Y talents will seek new jobs with new opportunities, particularly now that the doors of the Asean Economic Community (AEC) are opening and welcoming skilled talents to move more freely across borders. Hence, I suggest that they can be equally motivated by moving across the business or functions, being mentored, given the opportunity to learn new skills, or to participate in learning and development programmes, possibly of their own choice.
A welcoming and supportive work environment is another factor that needs to be reinforced. Ask yourself whether it really matters if your team is not in the office every day during traditional working hours if they still can achieve or possibly exceed all their objectives in the timely manner you expect. For them, flexibility and freedom are two key determining factors in choosing employers.
What’s more, they are expecting their experience with technology in the workplace to be as good as, if not better than the experience they have in their personal lives. Investing in upgrading the technology in your office can enhance the overall working environment — not just for Gen Y but for everybody.
Even when you have done all the right things necessary to retain the top talents for the longest time possible, it is still inevitable that some will leave eventually, so this should also be incorporated to your plan. For example, you could create a talent alumni programme that can actively engage and track key alumni. You could also shift your view of the exit interview, as it should no longer be simply about leaving the business but about graduating into a new form of relationship and connection.
All in all, the above approaches are only samples of what you should and could do if you wish to engage and retain future talents in the disruptive era. Other critical factors — embracing their independence, being transparent and communicating values and meaning — must also be upheld. Lastly, I suggest that you ensure to keep your focus on recruiting for the future in your strategy.
To do this, you can start by branding your company, being proactive in sourcing the talent you require, and making talent spotting a core requirement for all the people in your business. As well, make sure that you have embedded the adoption of advanced social media and technology into the recruiting and attraction process.
Talent acquisition and retention will remain a prominent issue in Asean. If you can manage to understand the changing landscape and its implications, and can respond with the right strategies, surely your company won’t be easily disrupted.
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Arinya Talerngsri is Chief Capability Officer and Managing Director at SEAsia Center (formerly APMGroup) Southeast Asia's leading executive, leadership and innovation capability development centre. She can be reached by email at arinya_t@seasiacenter.com or www.linkedin.com/in/arinya-talerngsri-53b81aa For daily updates, visit www.facebook.com/seasiacenter