Manage the millennial experience

As the largest private employer in India, hospitality has to take note of the new generation of employees. Millennials are the most aware of our workforce ever, managing them includes understanding what they want and redefining the rules writes C Mahalingam

Make no mistake; we are no longer living in a service economy. We have in fact moved into what is now known as experience economy where customers pay a premium for exciting experiences. Rock concerts, formula one races, twenty-twenty cricket matches and live music in restaurants offer unique experiences for the discerning fans and they will pay a hefty price for enjoying this experience. As expected, this experience economy is fast expanding into hospitality. Creating the wow experience for your customers time and again holds the key to winning, retaining and expanding your valued customer base.

Delivering a delightful experience is no longer a matter of scripted dialogues for greeting and treating your customers. It calls for creative spontaneity that only self-motivated employees can provide. Providing an ethereal experience to customers is a matter of choice that every single employee exercises. It cannot be mandated.

In his acclaimed book Individualised Corporations, professor Sumantra Ghoshal made a powerful case for moving from an organisation man concept to an individualised corporation as the new management philosophy to succeed. This new paradigm calls for creating three core capabilities; the ability to inspire individual creativity and initiative built on fundamental faith in people, the ability to link and leverage pockets of entrepreneurial capability by strengthening organisational learning and finally, the ability to continuously renew itself.

The key to building the above three core capabilities lies in an employer’s ability to understand the characteristics of the people entering the workforce today. Welcome to the world of millennials. For this reason, restaurants and hotels should take note.

A significant percent of today’s workforce is Generation Y also often referred to as millennials. They are very different from the workforce of the past that comprised the Generation X or baby boomers. The people policies and practices of the past that were designed to attract, keep and motivate the Gen X will not deliver the desired results when applied to Gen Y. The new generation of MBAs and college trained recruits coming into the managerial ranks as well as those coming into the rank and files of the booming hospitality industry today represent this new generation. A lot depends on understanding this generation’s unique characteristics.

Gen Y is made of a different mould and some of the characteristics that make them so special are that they:

• Are highly mobile and independent
• Prefer to consult their peers and friends for career moves and choices rather than their parents as Gen X probably did
• Are multi-faceted and capable of multi-tasking and so will get easily irritated with boring routines
• Take up jobs that challenge them rather than those that offer fat pay packets sans challenges
• Do not like either-or options. It is not work life or family but a blended life for them
• Want to be consulted on issues that affect them, just not informed
• Prefer value learning and employability rather than employment security
• Are willing to be led, but refuse to be managed
• Like to take calculated risks and are willing to bet rewards against risk
• Respect knowledge and expertise but question authority and positional power 

The above characteristics are only illustrative. While each of this generation may have a lot in common, they are also unique in terms of the combination of these characteristics in which they come. 

There are multiple implications for those who employ and manage the Gen Y:

• The Employee Value Proposition (EVP) for attracting this generation of workforce must be dramatically different. If you have had one in the past, it well worth dropping it in your dustbin and start working on it afresh
• Involve them in making policies and creating processes. It is not worth wasting their smarts
• Define results and outcomes from their roles, and share your standards and values with them. Let them figure out the best way to accomplish
• Provide them career growth opportunities commensurate with their contribution and competence, not their age and experience. With Gen Y, age is important only if you are cheese or wine, to use terminology that the hospitality industry understands
• Be transparent with them and on as many organisational issues as possible. They have a good understanding of the cultural and technological implications and are not bound by rules of the past
• Make them partners in creating a vision for your business. Gen Y simply does not rally around ant hills

Well, we all have been successful with our management paradigms in the past. But with the millennials, our success quotient is directly proportional to our ability to unlearn and relearn. There is a choice not to change, if we are going to employ robots and not people.

C Mahalingam is the executive vice president and chief people officer with Symphony Services Corporation. He is one of the architects of the HR Competency Model developed under the aegis of CII-National HRD Network and also a member of Nasscom’s Mentorship panel. He can be reached at mahalingam.c@symphonysv.com