Employee Contribution versus Satisfaction
All organizations are trying to achieve success, which are simply the organization’s goals and targets. To achieve goals and targets, the organization needs to stay competitive in the respective industry or market. For that, an organization needs willing and able employees who can perform at the highest levels.
Such employees consist of several individuals who are having a unique path towards a personal goal (White, 2018). Therefore, they will have a concern on their personal values, career aspirations, personal interests and work life needs over the organizational well-being (White, 2018). However, at the end of the day, all employees are looking for the maximum satisfaction over their work (White, 2018).
Accordingly, both an organization and its employees are on paths of their own towards pursuing the definition of success (White, 2018). Most importantly these are not parallel paths but intersect at some point, daily which is of course at the work place as illustrated in figure 1.
Figure 1.0: The X-model of Employee Engagement
Employee Contribution versus Satisfaction
All organizations are trying to achieve success, which are simply the organization’s goals and targets. To achieve goals and targets, the organization needs to stay competitive in the respective industry or market. For that, an organization needs willing and able employees who can perform at the highest levels.
Such employees consist of several individuals who are having a unique path towards a personal goal (White, 2018). Therefore, they will have a concern on their personal values, career aspirations, personal interests and work life needs over the organizational well-being (White, 2018). However, at the end of the day, all employees are looking for the maximum satisfaction over their work (White, 2018).
Accordingly, both an organization and its employees are on paths of their own towards pursuing the definition of success (White, 2018). Most importantly these are not parallel paths but intersect at some point, daily which is of course at the work place as illustrated in figure 1.
 | |
(Source:White,2018)
Even though the paths of the organization and its’ employees towards pursuing their own goals are vice versa, there is an ‘APEX’ point where it intersect (figure 1.0). It is a lesser number compared to the total no. of staff in any organization; yet, employees falling to this category are the ones who are fully engaged. They contribute to the organization at the maximum level and possibly they are getting back the maximum satisfaction as well
The Millennial Challenge
Millennials are the demographic group following ‘Generation X’ and preceding ‘Generation Z’. Demographers and researchers typically use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s as ending birth years of this generation. Millennials are also called as Generation ‘Y’ (Stack, New York Times, 2018). As we are heading towards an era where ‘baby boomers’ are going to retire, more and more work forces in the world is going be overtaken by the Generation X and later by the Millennials.
Comparing the generations
Each generation defines a meaningful work slightly differently. The following are few responses received for an interview conducted by Kelly Pledger Weeks with few employees of each generation (Weeks, Harvard Business Review 2017).
Baby Boomers (born between 1946-1964): “If I didn’t get personal fulfillment and feel like I was doing something good, it would be miserable to put that much time and effort into something.”
Generation X (born between 1965-1983): “If your job is without meaning, what would get you out of bed?”
Millennials (born between 1984-2002): “I would rather make nothing and love going to work every day than make a ton of money and hate going to work every day.”
Going with the salient features or characteristics of each generation, boomers identify their strengths as organizational memory, optimism, and their willingness to work long hours (Giang, 2013). This generation grew up in organizations with large corporate hierarchies, rather than flat management structures and teamwork-based job roles (Gilbert, 2011). Generation X is thinking of accomplishing career goals and work life balance as the key components (Weeks, 2017, Harvard Business Review). In contrast, millennial generation has a different outlook on what they expect from their employment experience. Millennials are well educated, technology savvy, very self-confident, able to multi-task, enthusiastic, have plenty of energy (Giang, 2013) and they believe in having nice co workers, helping others and the community will make their job interesting (Weeks, 2017, Harvard Business Review). They have high expectations for themselves, and prefer to work in teams, rather than as individuals. Millennials seek challenges, yet work life balance is of utmost importance to them (Giang, 2013).
“One of the characteristics of millennials, besides the fact that they are masters of digital communication, is that they are primed to do well by doing good. Almost 70 percent say that giving back and being civically engaged are their highest priorities.” (Buchanon L, 2010, p 166)
As millennial have grown up in an era where information is just a ‘click’ away, they have developed themselves to create a problem and then to find few creative solutions to the same. Hence, they expect themselves to be the X-factor at work for their respective organization. For example, a millennial who had been struggling in her role, admitted to peers that, “I guess I just expected that I would get to act on more of my ideas, and that the higher ups here would have figured out by now that the model’s changing.” (Erickson, Harvard Business Review 2009).This shows that the current generation, ‘The boomers’ have not been successful in recognizing the true values of their following generation, thus failed in engaging Gen Y to the workforce.” (Erickson, Harvard Business Review 2009).
Engaging ‘Millennial’ to the workforce in an effective manner
“Age and stage don’t explain everything, either. If you have multiple Millennial on your team, you’ll realize that neither generation nor age can explain how different the Millennial are from one another” (Davey, 2018 July, Harvard Business Review).
Considering their unique characteristics, Millennial are presented with many challenges as well as opportunities by the management. Therefore, to succeed in driving any company to the next level with Millennial, the organization needs to get the right strategy of engaging them (Gilbert, 2011).As per Mike Johnson’s ‘The new rules of engagement’, engagement now begins with employees’ lifestyles and what they consider is worth investing themselves in; the choice to engage lies with the employee (Smith & Marwick, 2009). Accordingly, here are some top strategies that can be adopted or followed to engage the Millennial.
01. Develop unique connections
As ‘Millennial’ are more often work as a team, they fancy being more interactive between peers and even with the line managers. Therefore, they need to be facilitated to develop such skills and connections by organizing more interactive forums between staff (Gaskel, 2016, Forbes). Sessions on defining the organizational vision and mission too will help (Gilbert, 2011).
02. Flexibility at workplace
‘Millennial’ have grown up in an era where they can reach any information almost instantly. Therefore it is essential to understand their true potential and to give them freedom to ‘think out of the box’ to gain more creative solutions (Reilly, 2014).
03. Training & Development together with Innovations
In any organization, development of employee skills is highly significant to keep in touch with the organizational demand (Gilbert, 2011). Together with training and development, innovation too has become a major focus for many organizations as it is providing the ‘competitive edge’ for most of the firms (SHRM, 2014). Since the new generation is more engaged and savvy in technical aspects, such strategy would make loads of favor for the organization.
04. Continuous Appraisals/Feedback
Millennial always want to feel the work they are engaged in. They want to feel appreciated for the crucial commitment they have contributed towards the organization’s success (Robinson & Gandhi, 2019).
Conclusion
Engagement is a measure where inputs vary in the overall engagement equation across organizations. A company cannot necessarily imitate participation practices or use the participant's variables for success. The work of managers and human resources professionals who are responsible for the engagement is to know that there are generational differences and that the decision-makers in the company's engagement are not always the same as the main competitor. By adopting this approach, executives should initiate discussions in their own organizations to find out which drivers can be tuned to increase engagement and which drivers they need to protect to prevent the engagement from falling across generations.
Millennial are from a new generation who want to do something different. One argument that continues to follow any strategy when experts think about it is that management is still stuck in the past, or that thousands of years remain out of business. As a business, success can only be achieved if the designated goals are meticulously designed and the employees are supported to understand and implement for better performance. Therefore, looking at the brighter side of this millennial cloud is largely important as it can take your business to the next level. The strategies mentioned, will be your drivers to increase the millennial engagement.
References
Adi Gaskell – Forbes article on ‘How To Engage The Millennial Workforce’ – Feb 25 2016 (Online) Available at https://www.forbes.com/sites/adigaskell/2016/02/25/how-to-engage-the-millennial-workforce/#519bc40511a2 – Accessed on 26/04/2019
Armstrong, M. - ‘A Handbook of Personnel Management Practice’ 6th edition. London: kogan page.
Blessing white – You tube (online) available at https://youtu.be/I-VtYFS9v8Q
Buchanon L. – ‘Meet the Millennials’, Sept 2010, Vol. 32 Issue 7, p166 –Accessed through the library of Central Bank of Sri Lanka on 02.04.2019
Gemma Robertson Smith & Carl Marwick – “Employee engagement – A review of Current thinking” report 469 published by Institute for Employment studies -UK, 2009
Jennifer Robinson & Rujuta Gandhi – Gallup article on “Make Engagement Central to Culture and Reap the Rewards” – March 13,2019 (Online) Available at https://www.gallup.com/workplace/247493/engagement-central-culture-reap-rewards.aspx Accessed on 26/04/2019
Kelly Pledger Weeks (July 31, 2017) – “Every Generation Wants Meaningful Work - but Thinks Other Age Groups Are in It for the Money” Harvard Business Review (Online) Available at https://hbr.org/2017/07/every-generation-wants-meaningful-work-but-thinks-other-age-groups-are-in-it-for-the-money
Liam Stack (March 01, 2018) – “Are You 21 to 37? You Might Be a Millennial” New York times article (Online) Available at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/style/millennials.html - Accessed on 27/04/2019
Liane Davey ( July 16 , 2018) – “The Key to Preventing Generational Tension Is Remembering That Everyone Wants to Feel Valued” Harvard Business Review (Online)
Tamara Erickson (February 2009) – ‘Gen Y in the Workforce’, Harvard Business Review (Online) Available at https://hbr.org/2009/02/gen-y-in-the-workforce-2 (accessed on 31.03.2019)
Reilly, R. (2014) ‘Five Ways to Improve Employee Engagement Now’ (Online)Available at: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/231581/five-ways-improve-employee-engagement.aspx (accessed on 15.04.2019)
Gilbert J (September/October 2011) ‘The Millennials: A new generation of employees, a new set of engagement policies’ Available at https://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/the-millennials-a-new-generation-of-employees-a-new-set-of-engagement-policies/ (accessed on 31.03.2019)
Society for Human Resource Management (Issue 2 / 2014) ‘Employee Engagement: The Newest Research and Trends’ Available at https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/business-solutions/Documents/140373%20Workplace%20Visions%20Issue%202%202014_FINAL.pdf (accessed on 31.03.2019)
Vivian Giang (September 09, 2013) Business Insider article on ‘Here are the Strengths and Weaknesses of Millennials, Gen X and Boomers’ (Online) – Available at https://www.businessinsider.com/how-millennials-gen-x-and-boomers-shape-the-workplace-2013-9 - Accessed on 27/04/2019
