There’s the urge to grow in the corporate ladder and somewhere along the way… there’s company loyalty.. mutually exclusive you think??

I dare say that these days I’ve started looking back at my life a lot and recalling fun times in college, at family vacations, the craziest conversations you had and a lot more! Signs of ageing you say? Well, maybe but right now I’m in a ‘Glass half full phase’ so I’m gonna say it’s the experience talking J

Anyway, so I was on one of these reflective moods one day when I remembered a random chat I had years ago in B-school with some of my classmates. The conversation was about whether if we really got into a company on campus, would one of our goals be to stick with the company for more than 5 years?

So while I recalled that conversation today, I realized that the stuff that matters most to young professionals today methinks is growth and compensation. They go hand in hand. One without the other does not work for retention from my humble experience. Much as organizations try though, most of the time, it becomes virtually impossible to keep every young professional engaged enough to perform to his optimum. Somewhere something gets missed and every appraisal season, we are faced with some demotivation and angst. I have had to counsel a number of young folk who believe that somewhere their contributions were not recognized and that they worked very hard but nobody noticed!

On the one hand we have continued to reinforce for years that proper career development, goal setting and performance management mechanisms must be in place to ensure that talent and contribution are measured and recognized in organizations irrespective of the scale or nature of operations. And that continues to be a challenge for all companies, big and small. In addition mentoring and buddying the young employees with a proper induction to the company values and their jobs also goes a long way in ensuring that the employee is attached to the organization.

While I sincerely believe these should continue to be the focus areas for all HR practitioners to achieve,

Let’s think out of the box for a minute and approach the challenge in a different light….

The young professionals today consume and spend so much more than before. Their aspirations for luxury and desire to achieve the same also comes in at a very young age largely because everything is so easily available now. Most people want to own homes in cities, cars, club memberships etc. in their late 20’s which was not only a dream but wasn’t even a desire a few decades ago. These aspirations will probably only increase with time thus making it increasingly difficult for organizations to match them.

Definitely the compensation structure is getting more and more flexible now to increase take home pay per month. This is one of the ways in which these aspirations can be met.

However, it is my belief that if organizations started looking at hiring most of their workforce on fixed term contracts (FTCs), things may start to look up in terms of employee engagement and performance.

Creating a growth path for 2-5 yrs is much easier in the current, uncertain environment that doing the same for 10-15 yrs. In addition, FTCs also allow more room for delivery based incentives and penalties if we were to get even more radical. I have noticed that young professionals are extremely particular about executing tasks as soon as possible, are willing to work late if the situation demands it and are very willing to keep everyone concerned in the loop and steer clear of office politics. Security, belongingness and bonding have taken different meanings today. Earlier, people were inspired more by the leaders that made the company, the values it represented. Today for a youngster it’s about instant recognition, a team that sees things the same way and great friends at the workplace who he can share experiences with.

Therefore, the way I see it is if we’re in a scenario where Company ‘A’ signs someone in for a period of 2 yrs for achieving deliverable ‘X’ – the progress on which will be reviewed every 6 months; and based on this progress, there are linked incentives and on successful completion of the stint, he receives say a personalized recommendation letter from the CEO and an opportunity on any other assignment, don’t you think that will be a great way to create goodwill, motivation and more importantly – performance? Isn’t this the best way for any professional to grow and be loyal to teams and companies at the same time?

I leave this thought open for comment…..

Jai Ho!!!!!!!!!!

Aparna Krishnan :-)