A Study On Employee Engagement Of Millennials In The Organizations.

*Nakka Uday Kumar

Research Scholar, Faculty of management, Osmania University, Telangana

**Dr.L.Srinivas Reddy

Principal, Aristotle PG College, Moinabad, Rangareddy Dist, Telangana

ABSTRACT:
From a HR perspective today employee engagement continues to be an important
consideration. Due to the challenging economic climate, organisations now more than ever
are deciding to restructure and resize, which has resulted in organisations formulating new
approaches to maintain and increase employee engagement. Organisations needs to recruit
and train their talent, need to do their best to keep hold of itThe millennial generation, born
between 1980 and 2000 now entering employment in vast numbers, will shape the world of
work for years to come. Attracting the best of these millennial workers is critical to the future
of your business. Their career aspirations, attitudes about work, and knowledge of new
technologies will define the culture of the 21st century workplace.

Keywords : Employee engagement, restructuring, Millennial workforce, Career aspiarations

INTRODUCTION :

“The millennials,” a wistful F. Scott Fitzgerald might have written today, “are different than
you and me.” Managers accustomed to using certain practices to engage boomers are going
to have to change their ways – and practices – if they hope to engage and retain the newest
heavily scrutinized employee cohort, the millennials.

Millennials already form 25% of the workforce in the US and account for over half of the
population in India.

By 2020, millennials will form 50% of the global workforce.But although they will soon
outnumber their Generation X predecessors, they remain in short supply, particularly in parts
of the world where birth rates have been lower. The top level says that attracting and keeping
younger workforce is one of their biggest talent challenges.

For years, employers have been aware of employee engagement and retention issues in their
workplaces. These organizations have engagement policies that typically address engagement
for the organization under one policy, without any differentiation for the generations of
employees. Managers and human resources professionals will need to develop new employee
engagement models take into account the generational differences .

NEED OF THE STUDY :

In the present context engagement of millennials has become crucial for the organizations
due to which the engagement practices are being investigated and new practices are being
developed by the organizations.
SCOPE OF THE STUDY :

The study covers the employee engagement practices employed by organizations worldwide
for millennials and various other characteristics of millennial workforce are also is of
importance.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY :

1. To study the employee engagement practices adopted by Hr department

2. To know about the importance of millennials for the organization
3.To understand the needs of the millennial workforce
4.To study the organizational structures being adopted by organizations.
5.To Study the role of managers in the organizations.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE :

Kahn (1990)was credited with conceptualising the term personal engagement which
he defines as “the harnessing of organisational members‟ selves to their work roles;
in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively and
emotionally during role performances”.

Kahn’s study started with the work of Goffman (1961), as well as looking across
disciplines such as psychology (Freud 1922), sociology (Merton 1957) and group
theorists (Slater 1966, Smith & Berg 1987) who all documented the natural
resistance of an individual, concerning becoming a member of ongoing groups and systems.

According to Baumruk (2004) employee engagement has been defined within the confines of
emotional and intellectual commitment to the organisation or the quantity of discretionary
effort, defined by Yankelovich and Immerwahr (1984), as the voluntary effort employees
provide above and beyond what is required by employees in their job (Frank et al2004).

Kahn (1990) argued that the work of Goffman (1961) only concentrated on momentary face
to face meetings, whereas an altered concept needed to be developed which would transcend
appropriately into organisational life, which is, according to Diamond & Allcorn (1985), “on
going, emotionally charged and psychologically complex”.

Truss et al(2006), define employee engagement as a „passion for work‟, which encompasses
the three elements of engagement, previously discussed by Kahn (1990) in one psychological
state. According to Ferguson (2007), with a universal definition of employee engagement
lacking, it cannot be accurately defined and thus it cannot be measured and thus managed.

Robinson et al (2004) define engagement as one step up from commitment.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY :

Secondary Data :

As it is a theoretical study the data is collected from books, journals, magazines and
organisation’s websites.

MILLENNIAL WORKFORCE :

The millennial generation is the largest age group to emerge since the baby boom generation,
and as this group grows significantly as a proportion of the workforce over the next 20 years,.
Research has shown that boomers identify their strengths as organizational memory,
optimism, and their willingness to work long hours. This generation grew up in organizations
with large corporate hierarchies, rather than flat management structures and teamwork-based
job roles.

Millennials have a drastically different outlook on what they expect from their employment
experience. Millennials are well educated, skilled in technology, very self-confident, able to
multi-task, and have plenty of energy. They have high expectations for themselves, and prefer
to work in teams, rather than as individuals. Millennials seek challenges, yet work life
balance is of utmost importance to them. They do, however, realize that their need for social
interaction, immediate results in their work, and desire for speedy advancement may be seen
as weaknesses by older colleagues.

Motivating, engaging, and retaining people will never cease as managerial priorities, but
employers will have to carefully consider what strategies they will use to cultivate and retain
valuable millennial employees now and into the future?

As Leigh Buchanon writes in Meet the Millennials, “One of the characteristics of millennials,
besides the fact that they are masters of digital communication, is that they are primed to do
well by doing good. Almost 70 percent say that giving back and being civically engaged are
their highest priorities.”

Coupled with the socially minded millennial comes their desire to be creative. Millennials
have grown up in a time where information has become available instantly. Through a Google
or Wikipedia search, answers to even quite complicated questions can be found.

In a 2009 article by Tamara Erickson, a millennial who had been struggling in her role,
admitted to peers that, “I guess I just expected that I would get to act on more of my ideas,
and that the higher ups here would have figured out by now that the model’s changing.” (Gen
Y in the Workforce, Tamara Erickson, Harvard Business Review, February 2009)

The millennial employee is interested in feedback on his or her performance. But traditional
semi-annual reviews are too infrequent for millennials.

The new feedback methods which are to be employed by the organizations are checklists,
reward them for innovating and taking appropriate risks, engage them with frequent
feedback, provide them with mentors, create a collegial and team-oriented culture, etc.
Feedback must also be given in such a way that millennials are receptive.Feedback needs to
be clear and specific to be effective.
Creating engagement strategies is one of management’s big goals. Creating strategies to
engage millennials requires a whole different approach – and strategy.

career opportunities, corporate social responsibility, employee health , employer reputation;

learning and development, managing performance, senior leadership, and work-life balance.

CONCLUSION OF THE STUDY :

One organization cannot everytime imitate the engagement practices of others to achieve
success. The job of managers and human resources professionals responsible for millennial
engagement is to know that there are generational differences, and that the employee
engagement aspects for their company will not always be the same as their competitor.

On this aspect leaders should need to dwelve into their own organizations in pushing to
learn which factors they can adjust to increase engagement, and the areas which they must
protect to prevent decreases in the engagement across generations.

BIBLIOGRAPHY :

1.,sarah cook(2008) , The essential guide to employee engagement ,kogan publishers,2008

2. Robinson, D., S. Perryman, and S. Hayday (2004). "The Drivers of Employee

Engagement". Institute for Employment Studies.

3. Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work

Kahn, William A, Academy of Management Journal; Dec 1990.

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the-workplace.pdf

5.http://trap.ncirl.ie/599/1/Robert_Knight.pdf

6.http://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/the-millennials-a-new-generation-of-employees-
a-new-set-of-engagement-policies/

7.https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/managing-tomorrows-people/future-of-work/assets/reshaping-
the-workplace.pdf

8.https://www.dalecarnegie.com/assets/1/7/driveengagement_101612_wp.pdf