Introduction
The approximate world population in the year 1950 was 2.5 billion, a figure anticipated to reach 7.5 billion by the year 2020. Among the causes of the rapid population increase is the baby boomers, the generation X, and the millennials. These are the three generations that form the contemporary global human resource corps (Cox, 2016). All baby boomers have passed the age of 50 and are either retired or approaching retirement. The generation x, which was born between in the 1960s to around 1984 is also slowly ageing and will soon be joining the baby boomers in retirement. This leaves a clear prospect of a human resource body comprised mainly of millennials in the near future. Further, due to the continued population increase as aforesaid, the millennial working generation will also be exponentially much larger, and working in a busier environment (Raslie, Pit, & Ting, 2016). The transition from the working environment of the baby boomers and the generation x into a work environment dominated by the millennials will create a complex problem, requiring advanced and innovative solutions. It is this problem and its possible solutions that form the essence of this research paper.
Analysis of the Problem
The baby boomers were born into a world in a crisis and grew up with an instinctive obligation to save it. They mainly undertook professional courses, were extremely focused and also in many ways absolutely selfless from a professional perspective. Research shows that this generation focuses more on their professional obligations than on their social or family life (Cox, 2016). They do not mind working for long hours and also require minimum supervision. In spite of their commitment however, age is gradually catching up with them. The generation X includes many of the children of the baby boomers who believe that their parents worked too hard. They have, therefore, sought to balance between work and a social/family life. However, they are very highly skilled, extremely committed to their work, and also able to manage with minimum supervision. The several congruencies between the skillsets and traits of the baby boomers and the generations X made for a smooth transition between the two generations in the work place. Indeed, the generation X now makes a majority of the work force (Cox, 2016).
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The millennials however, are exponentially different and relate to the generation born from 1985 up to around 1996 with some scholars placing their birth to as late as 2003. A perfect way of defining this generation is indicating that in the year 1999, the Y2K programming problem was feared to be capable of crippling the world. This is a confirmation that the millennials grew in a world that was increasingly under computer control which aspect has not changed to date. This generation is, therefore, technologically astute and understand information technology well even when they have not pursued IT based courses (Huyler et al, 2015).
Further, having grown up in the age of Google, MSN and Yahoo search engines as well as online encyclopedias, this generation has not has to commit much to memory. Instead of carrying answers to problems and questions, this generation expects answers to come to them. Finally, this generation is mostly born of generation X who felt that they were under-parented thus they compensated by over-parenting their children (Simmons, 2015). The generation is, therefore, pampered and always expecting and anticipating the availability of choices. They are also known to be stubborn, entitled and focused on rewards not processes. The instant problem, therefore, is how to replace the current workforce, which includes baby boomers and a majority of generation X workers with a workforce dominated by millennials without interfering with efficiency (Raslie et al., 2016).
Potential Solutions to Relating Issues
Employee Engagement
The contemporary definition of employee engagement is the creation of a working environment that every member of the organization to give their very best to the organization (Berman & Bowman, 2016). This entails a commitment to the organization, an eagerness to contribute to the success of the entire system and a belief in the concept that the success of the company is also the success of individual workers. From this definition, the concept of employee engagement is premised on team spirit (Simmons, 2015). The concept of team spirit is mainly alien and will not work well with the millennials more so as a means of motivation. Creating employee engagement among the millennials will require an employee engagement stratagem that focuses on the individual and that makes working well relevant to individual workers and also seem fruitful to this individual workers. Among the most feasible programs would be an individual effort reward scheme (Simmons, 2015).
Work Structure
Forcing the millennials to work under the same work structures as the generation X and baby boomers will clearly be counterproductive (Simmons, 2015). The baby boomers and generation X were taught to do one thing at a time and focus on specialization. The millennials are multitasking experts and good at juggling moving from one obligation to the next. In school, they had to study, play a musical instrument, excel in at least one sport, be a member of several school clubs such as wildlife and debating yet still have a social life and find time for entertainment. At any one time, millennials are thinking about several things contemporaneously. Their work structure will need to provide a wide array of duties that the millennials can undertake and allow them to have some choice on what they want to do at a given time (Simmons, 2015).
This will require a more enabled middle level management, which can be able to make important on-site decisions since the supervision level of millennial will have to be on a personal level just as their employee engagement programs. This solution will also solve another problem, that is, the inability for the millennials to commit voluminous information to memory. Specialization made work easier because a worker can memorize the particulars pertinent to certain duties thus work by routine. Millennials however, are used to having an online manual at hand. The key is to provide the manual and at the same time expand their operating parameters and scope of responsibility (Huyler et al, 2015).
Communication
Communication is both a means of imparting information and also a way of remaining connected (Berman & Bowman, 2016). With regard to imparting information, the millennials will require a high volume of readily available information. The employer must, therefore, invest in the best possible communication devices connected to proper sources of well detailed information. Instructions should also be provided in a retrievable format so that the millennials can be referring to them constantly. Another important communication component is supervision through continuous connection. Unless there is an onsite supervisor, visual monitoring is mandatory for a workstation manned by millennials (Huyler et al, 2015). The availability of parents to clean up after millennials has made then have a high propensity for errors. When working with machinery, the superintendence indicated also involves advanced safe proofing mechanism to extenuate dangerous careless mistakes.
Impact of Improper Transition to the Millennials Working Generation
The first impact relates to the first issue of employee engagement. Unless the process of establishing employee engagement upon the millennials is effectively implemented, poor employee engagement will ensue (Simmons, 2015). Poor employee engagement results to a low return for wages to the employer. This is a result of a poor quality and quantity of work done. The overall result of this from a general perspective is the spread of mediocrity as the general quality of products reduces. Further, the cost of production would increase as more employee become necessary to undertake duties (Berman & Bowman, 2016).
The second impact relates to the second issue of work structures. The absence of choices will lead to a high employee turnover since the lack of choices internally will lead employees to seek for choices externally. High employee turnover is extremely expensive as it leads to a fresh hiring process as well as fresh training. Trade secrets and intellectual property are also jeopardized by a high employee turnover (Berman & Bowman, 2016). Finally, with regard to communication, the lack of proper and readily available information will exponentially reduce the quality and quantity of work done by the millennials. Instructions that are given but not made readily available for repeated perusal will not be properly followed leading to friction between workers and management or even lead to grievous accidents (Simmons, 2015). Lack of proper superintendence will also affect the quality. From the totality of the foregoing, non-adherence to effective transition measures into a millennials working force will cause human resource chaos.
Conclusion
The taking over of the workplace by the millennials is not imminent but remains inevitable. In the next few years, millennials will form a majority of the workforce and soon thereafter a majority of leadership. It is, therefore, incumbent on human resource experts to develop ways and means of ensuring a smooth generational transition in the work place. The fundamental concept of employee engagement will need to change so as to reflect the personalized nature of the millennials. Further, the concept of specialization will need to be discarded so as to enable millennials to have a choice of what they want to do within the organization to minimize on employee turnover. Finally, communication will need to change so as to allow for readily available information and instructions for millennials who are already used to having answers on their fingertips. Superintendence will also be important to mitigate on the propensity for mistakes. The onus is now on the baby boomers and the generation x to prepare the work environment for a millennials take over.
References
Berman, E., & Bowman, J. (2016). Human resource management in public service: Paradoxes, processes and problems (5th Ed.). Los Angeles Sage Publications
Cox, L. V. (2016). Understanding Millennial, Generation X, and Baby Boomer Preferred Leadership Characteristics: Informing Today’s Leaders and Followers (Doctoral dissertation, Brandman University)
Huyler, D. D., Ding, W., Norelus, A., & Pierre, Y. (2015). Millennials in the Workplace
Raslie, H., Pit, S., & Ting, S.-H. (2016). Millennials’ expectations of life at the university and the workplace: A Malaysian perspective. International Journal of Education , 8 (3), 71. doi:10.5296/ije.v8i3.9982
Simmons, A. J. (2015). Rescuing the millennials: four essential lessons learned and eight key principles to reclaiming this generation. Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 1066. http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/1066
