Being the human resource development student I learned in my college days that human behaviour is most unpredictable; didn’t understand the context at that time but extensive exposure of coming in contact & working with thousands of people made me comprehend it in various dimensions.
Being a Human Resource Development professional, I have been closely working with many white collar, blue collar and gray collar people and one common thing I have found among them was – The Indian youth has becoming more and more fanatical regarding employment virtues, longer tenure and allegiance to the organization. They tend to be absconding even for a minute financial benefit over the principles of learning & growing. In this scenario, the only blemish is not the youth on their side but also the mounting drift of urbanization and globalization has created enormous opportunities for them and they have simply carried away by demand & supply rule of economics.
Couple of decades ago, there was very difficult to get a job so people once got job would have spent their entire lives at a single place even tolerating the physical & verbal abuse; because that generation had the major concern of survival. Then next generation came in – they didn’t have the survival issues because their forefathers have already done arrangements in their time span. These people had to maintain the lifestyle & standard of living and therefore they were little more relaxed; but still the inclinations to leave jobs were not much. They could easily spend 10-15 years at one place – so ideally in their entire career they might have switched hardly 1 or 2 jobs.
Then the millennial generation came in the picture. This generation has been the most fortunate enough for several reasons i.e. their grand forefathers have solved their survival issues, their forefathers have managed their lifestyle & standard of living issues so they don’t have to bother either of them. Therefore they have been focusing on all the luxuries and fascinations in life. Because of driven by very high ambitions & aspirations towards lives – these people have been the highest absconding people.
This job generation gap of old v/s new generation employees can be explained through a comparison chart mentioned below:
Previous Generation Employees | Current Generation Employees |
Priority to integrity | Priority to remuneration |
Loyal to Boss | Loyal to own career |
Can do same job for years & years | Need variety in work at every 6 months |
Never say NO to any work | Always say to NO to every work other than his own job |
Open to work for longer hours | Strictly adhere to shift timings |
Over commitment to work (we can say emotional towards work) | Professional approach |
Concerned for work even post working hours | Least concerned for work post working hours |
Now, question is that previous generation employees’ mindset was good or the current one? Well this question is insignificant, it is said that change is the eternal law of the universe therefore this changed pattern is obvious and not to be bothered until our work is getting affected.
Few tips for the emerging HR professional to deal with this transition.
Feel free to write back for any employee related queries, concerns and challenges; we shall try to cater them either in the comment box below this article or may be as a subject in the next article.