Nudge the Elephant

This is an exciting time to be in India. The employees under thirty years of age represent a very large chunk of the demographically young India. By 2030, the global labor force is expected to grow by 300 million, with India projected to enjoy a vastly disproportionate two thirds of this growth according to this study by Goldman Sachs.  Between 2010-2030, India will add 241 Million people in working-age population; Brazil will add around 18 million, while China will add 10 million people during the same time. If this is the employee pool of the future, it is everyone's interest to invest in improving the quality of the labor pool.An increasing number Indian companies are now operating in different countries. This will lead to the evolution of a global leadership language that is more inclusive and incorporates the nuances beyond the American and European model. Evolving models of leadership will be influenced by India, Brazil and China than Western models. So there is a need to understand cultural nuances that drive this workforce.Some important areas for HR professionals to address in India:

• Employee Insights: Most organizations are seeing an increasing number of people in their twenties in the workforce. Eg In Wipro >60% employees are in their twenties and another 30% are between 30-40 years.) They are a different cultural generation. They have grown up in an environment of plenty. This young, tech savvy and mobile workforce defines their life and career in very unique terms. They define time in shorter spans than older workers: For example: If I tell you that I have been working in X organization for a long time, what is the amount of time I am referring to? People in their early twenties define it to be anywhere from 6 months to a year!! No wonder attrition is a challenge that is here to stay. (Read my article on The Changing Perception of Time)

• No Loyalty To Employer Brands: Employees are behaving like consumers. They are shopping for jobs.  They are not loyal to any employer brands. So HR professionals must learn to research the employees with the same degree of meticulousness as marketeers researching a consumer to insights. The drivers of the different employee cohorts are unique. The employees who are in their twenties view loyalty and tenure differently from the older employees. Find out about their drivers before you make a policy that affects them. For example, tenure more than five years is rewarded by the Government by a law that governs Gratuity (15 days wages for every year worked - subject to a ceiling). Some companies have started paying gratuity even for a year worked.

• Address Employablity: A McKinsey says (read it here), only 10-15% graduates are employable for business services and only 26% of engineers are employable for technology services. The report by OECD says "average levels of educational attainment and basic skill acquisition, including reading and writing, remain low by international standards" despite a rising number of educated employees. Acquiring actual skills, rather than amassing degrees and certificates, is what matters most for both the earnings potential of the individual as well as their contribution to economic growth at the aggregate level. The demographic dividend of India will have no meaning unless the educated have skills that are monetizable. They will need soft skills to be successful in a global marketplace. Given the correlation of literacy and population growth, the states with the poorest literacy levels will be contributing to the growing numbers.

• Invest in Curriculum of Employee Pools: There is a need to address the education system in India. Instead of addressing it when these people become employees, we need to address it when they are students. Else the problem will be too large to solve. HR will need to identify the sources of their employee pool ie the vocational colleges, engineering colleges etc and influence their curriculum to be able to fish in a larger pool. The key task will be to help the employees become productive in the shortest possible time. The employees who are in their twenties expect to change roles every year or so. Each time someone changes their role, the challenge is to make them learn the nuances of the new role quickly.

• Multiple Generations in the Workplace: Each cultural generation has different needs. Leaders need to learn to manage employees who have needs that are very different from their own. Organizational policies have worked on the premise that the organization's policies need to be uniform in order to be seen as fair. This paradigm shift will make it hard to create policies unless they address individual aspirations and needs. This is the key to attracting top talent and keeping them engaged. Each of the HR processes eg Hiring, Compensation & Benefits; Learning & Development needs to be differentiated to address the unique elements of each generation.

• Creating A Global Mindset: An increasing number of organizations are beginning to operate in other countries around the world. To be successful, the Indian managers will have to understand the cultural nuances of the workforce of the country they are operating in. HR will have to first understand for themselves the legal framework of the country and then layer on the nuances of the society from which they are drawing their employees. What works in the corporate office will probably not work in the field. There the new skills that HR will need to teach their leaders is how to lead a global workforce. How to build a connect and engage a workforce who they do not share a common cultural mindset and language with.

It is time for HR professionals to nudge the elephant.