Generation Y: How organizations can cope

Most studies globally has to date focused on how to lead Generation Y, popularly identified as those born between approximately 1980 and 2000.

Many employers have been grappling on how to attract and retain the best of these high potentials.  However, this task has proven to be a tall order.

The initial generation Y challenge is and has always been that the typical Y generation employee never intends to stay more than just a few years at the place of work no matter what package is offered.
A more recent challenge is that the oldest of Generation Y are entering their 30s and are no longer just young graduates looking for a foothold on the career ladder.

They now count among their numbers managers, experts and professionals. Organizations have spend a lot of time studying new gen y recruits and forgotten that they are now the team leaders, supervisor, managers etc

Let take a look at how organization can manage the ever changing generation Y challenges;

• Team leaders, head of departments need to proactively develop team cohesion and a sense of community within their teams and departments knowing full well that Gen Y grew up, after all, with social media, in the age of community and connection.
• Organizations need to realize that long-term company benefits such as pensions, steady but gradual promotion, mean less to the Gen Y employee than immediate challenge, development, opportunity, and meaning.
• Most organizations can bear witness that generation Y employees ask way to many questions. Questions such as ‘why are we here; what does it mean to work here?’ Employers need to realize that generation Y employees are always questioning their purpose. Managers need to quickly realize that generation Y are completely inverting Maslow’s hierarchy of motivation and would thus need to focus on the higher level of the hierarchy in order to satisfy these set of employees.
• Another tool at the managers’ disposal for employee engagement is  team development.  Rather than rewarding individuals with executive training and professional development, there is more impact to developing the entire team together. They build a common vocabulary, a collective call to action, a stronger culture, and a renewed and sharpened focus.  If teams can achieve a profound impact by growing ever more effective and significant in the footprint they make on their world, then their members have dwindling reasons to look elsewhere for career development.The older segment of Generation Y,  those attaining leadership positions in their own right, understand this dynamic better than anyone.

As more Gen Ys emerge into leadership, not only will the ‘team value proposition’ come to the fore, but the paradigm of the generation of community will start to influence the organisation’s priorities, the way it organizes internally, creates incentives, and defines what success means for the organization.