Steve Ballmer, ex-Nokia chief, said, "We did not do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost", that statement caught my attention while travelling from home to airport to catch an early morning flight.

Since then, it was bothering me so much that I could not take my mind off even during the flight.

Since childhood, I had been taught by my parents that your destiny is decided by your deeds and here such a respectable astute leader told the media that they did not do anything wrong or unethical but just they lost. My inquisitive mind was questioning me, if they did not do anything wrong why they lost the plot.

According to karma, the good/evil you do comes back to you. What did Nokia do which was equivalent to the evil?

Once upon a time being a Nokia user, I realized that in today's era if you are not changing yourself, updating yourself with time; it's an equivalent to evil.

All of us know change is an inevitable phenomenon and we all want that change to happen but none likes to initiate it. If ever, the change is imposed on us, we make faces, we start doubting on the future but rarely do we embrace with a positive mind. Today, whether in personal or professional front, if we don't predict the change and equip ourselves before it arrives, in no time, we will be extinct.

In fact study shows that 52% of the Fortune 500 companies have disappeared and rest are still thriving just because they adapted themselves with the need of the hour. They did not shy away from embracing the change by accepting their inability to predict it. Before 1955, life expectancy of an organization was average 75 years which has come down to 15 years by 2015.

Understanding Gen Y 

With the emerging trends of technology which was unthinkable 10 years back is reality today, same is going to happen in next 10 years or even less time. As the Gen-Y are arriving the work place being more technologically sound than their previous generations, organizations need to get ready to cater to the expectation of new generation employees.

Gone are those days when people used to work for an organization for 20yrs/25yrs or till their retirement, today if someone works for an organization 5yrs or little more gets recognized as a vintage loyal employee. With all the changes, definition of loyalty towards the organization has also changed. Today, hardly people consider loyalty of anyone by the tenure rather by the values he demonstrated during his tenure in his work is considered as his loyalty.

Every organization across the industries, across the globe is today having a common problem of engaging the Gen-Y, who question the status quo, who question the conventional ongoing norms of the organizations, who do not believe in so-called office culture, resulting into higher attrition. Keeping this Gen-Y abreast with the organization has become a biggest challenge for the organizations, the HR leaders and management leaderships.

Let's dig into the expectations of Gen-Y to understand how an organization could attain the same to keep this generation engaged with the organization.

To delve into the expectations of Gen-Y, we need to understand who they are. They are the one who were born in late 80s, who saw the change of conventional office work from pen and paper to keyboard and computer, who experienced the economic liberalization, who saw the emergence of Internet which brought the world in home, who saw the benefit of FDI , who earned a degree of foreign university without visiting the university physically. Since their birth they have only seen such paradigm changes, hence, they are not afraid of changes rather they are afraid if the change does not happen or get appreciated.

They are dynamic but not impatient (which most of us tag them as);they get bored but not tired, they are ambitious but not unreasonable (which most of us consider them as);they believe in team work but see their own growth in it; they value the organization but look for always better to scale them up; they are adaptable but not ready to creep in monotony in their work place; they don't mind to question the common belief but to accept it; they don't mind to ask the tough question to an age old practice of an organization but they don't like to shut their mouth.

Having said so, let's jot down the expectations of Gen-Y from the organizations.

1. They want organizations to be tech savvy
2. They want quick promotions
3. They want to learn new technologies, new methodologies which will enable them to deliver better and faster result
4. They want to earn more and better than their previous generations in younger age
5. They want better work life balance
6. They want flexi work timings than the fixed office timings
7. They want work place environment to be informal and fun loving than formal and serious
8. They want a flat organizational structure where anybody and everybody can be approachable than facing the barriers of hierarchy

Let us draw a blue print of how can organizations fit into the expectations of this generation to become preferred employers. Vineet Nayar,"Employees first, Customers second", reiterates the fact that organizations can't overlook the employees and their expectations. It's an imperative for the organizations to honor the expectations of the employees. Even when a product or a service does not exist or is born, still the employees exist.

Where to start?

It is obvious that there is a huge gap between the expectation of the new generation employees and what are they getting from the organizations, though, it is needless to say that the companies are changing themselves, organizational culture is getting changed but definitely not at the pace it is supposed to be which resulting into higher employee dissatisfaction and disengagement.

It is an anathema for the organization if it does not embrace the technology and automation and depend on manual work irrespective of the size of the organization. There is nothing wrong if the new age employees are demanding the organizations to be tech savvy and deliver the same result with more precision in less time.

In the era of start-up, definitely the new age organizations are coming with more advanced technology, giving better packages to its employees owing to the cash rich VCs, ornamenting fancy designations, giving a freedom from the brick and mortar office, boring cubicles and obviously attracting the millennial work force which definitely giving a tough run to the age old conventional organizations.

Employee development

Organizations can’t avoid millennial workforce, neither can they overlook their demand, hence, organizations need to change faster, adapt their policies, strengthen their L&D and T&D departments, make a robust OD department to cater to the Gen-Y demand.

It is essential to train the employees new skills in regular intervals, put them into newer exciting projects for a short span, do a detail study of the employees’ aspirations and align them with the organization goal. This would enable organizations not only to keep the employee motivated since, this answers to the point no1 and 3 of their expectations, but also would help organizations to achieve their business goals in a much smoother way.

Experience in resume should not be counted by the number of years of working but the number new skills one has developed or learned in the number of years of working. Age or number of years should not be a criterion to promote someone but should be skills.

If organizations encourage new skill learnings, make mandatory training hours and utilize those skills of the employees in achieving business goal it would be very difficult for the employees to leave the organizations or to get disengaged as there would be high sense of achievement and empowerment. Also, it would not be a difficult task for the organizations to give quick promotions that would suffice the expectation of quick promotions which in turn, would invoke better earning than their predecessors.

The importance of flexibility

It is a proven fact that open environment, minimal restrictions foster creativity, bring out the best out of people. Best of the best companies firmly believe in this principle and encourage such working environment and no wonder, they face little or no challenge to keep their employees engaged and see very minimum attrition, even when start-ups or competitors  offer their employees unimaginable package.

WFH or flexi timing in office is no longer alien in the corporate culture but very few organizations religiously allow or promote this. As millennials want to earn better in one hand, in other hand they want to spend a quality time with their near and dear ones, they don’t mind working hard throughout the week but want to give undivided attention to their families in weekends.

Organizations need to understand that extending office hours or working in weekends does not increase productivity or does not reflect one’s hard working nature rather it shows one’s inability to manage time and inappropriate use of companies paid hours and indirectly increase the overhead costs of the companies.

Organizations should stop praising the people who extend their office hours unnecessarily, work on weekends in office to complete the incomplete projects, but start to praise employees who finish their work within the office hours and meeting the deadlines without any extension., because millennials prefer these organizations to work with.

Ownership and trust

Millennials love to be part of decision making, like companies to hear out their opinion. Many new age companies and few preferred employers do involve their employees in decision making, no matter how trivial the decision is, this brings the belongingness, this triggers the emotions of the employees.

Of course, no company involves its all the employees opinion in very strategic decisions but involving in not so strategical matters harness the employees emotionally with the organization. This gives the ownership to the employees, brings them emotionally closer and makes it harder for them to leave as it addresses their what-is-there-in-it-for-me.

In conclusion, it is imperative for the organizations to change themselves according to the expectations of the young work force to become preferred employers, or else it would be very difficult to attract and engage the millennials. Only positive employee value proposition can help the organizations to keep the attrition in single digit.

Organizations that would not accept the changing employment environment would perish in no time, even if their products or services being relevant, since we should not forget that employees get on boarded first and then products or services get launched.