Overcoming the Changing Face of India's Workforce
Career Opportunities
One key improvement driver across all employee levels, regardless of generation or gender is "Career Opportunities". Across genders and generations, one third of employees feel that they do not have sufficient career opportunities. Generation Y in particular is less satisfied with their learning and development opportunities. Along with challenging work, Generation Y also ranks training programs as a highly preferred development opportunity, emphasizing their desire to keep learning
Enthusiasm for training and development is beneficial not just to the employees but also to organizations, especially since Generation Y comprises a large sum of the workforce. While training will of course be an ongoing investment made by organizations, as long
as they are able to keep employees engaged, they will reap the benefits of a more skilled and highly trained workforce.
Recognition
Another improvement driver that appears frequently across genders, generations and organization types is "Recognition". While monetary recognition and accelerated career
opportunities are preferred across generations and genders, some methods are preferred relatively more by some demographics. For instance, accelerated career growth/ development and opportunities for special assignments are more important to men, while monetary recognition and flexibility in work arrangements hold greater importance for women.
Generation Y's preferences are actually a combination of the two, with this generation preferring flexible working arrangements and opportunities for special assignments more than other generations. Organizations need to ensure that their employees have the flexibility to work both in a variety of areas and also at a pace that will allow them to balance their work and their personal lives. The interest of younger generations in working across domains ties in with their desire for more training opportunities - clearly these employees want to develop their skills base and broaden their horizons.
Pay and Benefits
While there is a lot of overlap across generations and genders, each demographic also has unique drivers, which highlight the specific areas on which organizations should focus for each generation and gender. Looking at "Pay" specifically shows that women are less likely to agree that they are being paid competitively, and as the generations get younger, respondents are less likely to agree to this too, with Generation Y having the lowest number of respondents agreeing to this and the Baby Boomers having the highest. Going more in depth also shows that compared to the other generations, Generation X wants a higher fixed pay and is relatively less concerned by performance bonuses.
While most employees would probably relish higher compensation and benefits packages, the desired
break-up of these packages differs across different demographic cuts. Therefore, it is important for organizations to leverage this knowledge and provide employees with packages that reflect what
they actually want from their organizations.
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