|
This synopsis is brought to you by the RCI Center of Excellence. In addition to summarizing the work for you to save you time, we relate the salient points to our own thinking on the subject. Please feel free to add your own views and comments in the Comments section at the end of this article. Enjoy!
Generational Talent Management:
Strategies to Attract and Engage Generation Y in the US Banking and Securities Industries
Authored by: Rekha Sampath
Published by: Deloitte Development LLC
Gen-Yers are people born between the years of 1982 and 1993, and they currently make up around 10 percent of the US labor pool, according to a Deloitte whitepaper. The total number of young people in this age bracket is around 75 million – the largest generation after the baby boomers. Generally speaking this new generation, ‘balance[s] idealism with pragmatism, and demand[s] flexibility, balance, respect and accessibility’. How are we to adapt and attempt to engage Gen-Yers? Deloitte suggests that ‘companies should incorporate underlying workplace values into their talent infrastructures’.
Although this Deloitte whitepaper focuses on attracting Gen-Yers into the banking and securities industries, we will summarize the more generalized aspects of attracting and retaining members of this generation, so that this information becomes useful to multiple industries.
The article acknowledges that weaving the Gen-Y outlook into organizational cultures and fabrics constitutes a challenge. This generation’s expectations are quite unlike any others’. So what values and expectations does Gen-Y hold? Deloitte has identified the following:
- ‘Long-term career development and multiple experiences within a single organization’
- ‘A sense of purpose and meaning in work’
- ‘Availability and access to mentors and other company champions’
- ‘Work/life flexibility’
- ‘Tech-savvy work environment’
- ‘Open social networks that embrace open/honest communication’
Deloitte has developed the ‘Develop-Deploy-Connect’ talent management framework which outlines ways to attract and retain Gen-Yers.
Develop workers by providing active learning opportunities. We are not talking about traditional online learning; we are talking ‘trial by fire’ experiences that stretch their capabilities to the max.
Deploy Gen-Yers by designing effective working environments, and involve them by establishing an infrastructure that fosters collaboration. ‘Identify their deep-rooted skills and knowledge, identify their best fit, and craft the job design and conditions to help them perform’. One means of achieving this is by seeking to gain multi-generational perspectives by increasing the influence this new generation has on the workforce and as customers.
Connecting employees entails providing them with the tools they need to build networks and improve interactions with others so that individual and organizational performances are ameliorated.
Cultivating an environment and atmosphere of ‘hope, possibility, respect and accessibility’ may well result in intergenerational collaboration and lasting success. Closely connected with this aspect of an organization’s approach to Gen-Yers is employer branding – more perhaps than any other generation, Gen-Yers ‘tend to use their networks to uncover diverse sources of information and then form their own opinions’.
Branding for Generations Yers had four tiers, according to Peter Sheahan, a Gen-Y expert cited in the whitepaper. The first is the company’s name and logo, although only the tip of the organizational iceberg, ‘encompasses all the perceptions and practices below the water’s surface’. And Gen-Yers are discerning analysts of what lies beneath the surface.
The next tier is labeled ‘expertise’ and refers to the products and services the company provides. Engaging Gen-Yers in this aspect of the business might entail engaging them in the development of expertise improvement and communication. Some firms utilize the concept of ‘reverse mentoring’ whereby ‘younger workers advise their experienced counterparts on marketplace trends’.
The third of Sheahan’s tiers is ‘style’ of operation. This might relate to roles and rewards programs that define an organization’s culture. Flexible compensation and virtual workplace arrangements fall under this overall work/life flexibility banner.
The fourth and deepest tier – positioning – is at the base of the branding iceberg. ‘Multi-generational focus groups of existing and potential employees help identify the elements that make them unique, and then highlight such features through customized advertising’. Some companies, according to the report, now hold ‘“high touch”, or contactrecruiting through social chat rooms and information sessions. One large, retail bank even helps graduating students polish their resumes to create buzz and identify strong prospects.
In the final analysis, and according to the Deloitte talent management framework, ‘branding… and positioning can enable employers to demonstrate their commitment to developing, deploying and connecting their workforces’. Perhaps it is time to consider how well your talent development program develops, deploys and connects an intergenerational workforce. Some of the strategies in this summary may assist your organization to instigate cultural change.
Access the Original Work (Some sites require registration)
Center of Excellence clients, Performance Staffing and STREAMline™ alumni only: If you have trouble downloading any of the original works referenced here, please contact us so we can arrange access for you to our private-study archive. All other visitors please contact the publisher.
|
