Dealing with the Millennial Generation

Debashis Basu 12 November 2016

SocialCops was founded by Prukalpa Sankar and Varun Banka; they were batch-mates at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. While they were interning with large investment banks, they learnt the importance of ‘big data’ and how “analysts in the financial sector relied on it to execute crucial decisions,” writes Subramanian S Kalpathi, the author of The Millenials: Exploring the World of the Largest Living Generation, with a touch of hyperbole. He quotes Prukalpa as saying “We wondered if we could bring this same technology into the mainstream, say for instance, to help governments make better decisions. Instead of relying on surveys with small sample sizes, policy-level decisions affecting large populations could be undertaken using big data, based on insights gathered from thousands, even millions of data points.”

According to the author, Prukalpa and Varun ran pilots and tested the concept for SocialCops in their final year of college and raised about $25,000. They came back to India after graduating from NTU and executed their first project for the Delhi Municipal Corporation. In 2013, they launched their first pilot for Delhi Municipal Ward No 103, viz., Punjabi Bagh, and dealt with sanitation and cleanliness which is the job of safai karamcharis. SocialCops put in place a system to measure the performance of sanitation workers through a rating system and tied it to incentives. Every week, for two months, citizens would rate their streets for cleanliness on a scale of 1 to 10. The best five karamcharis were then rewarded. This apparently led to an improved cleanliness and improved attendance rates. “The karamcharis were particularly thankful for the recognition they received by way of certificates and trophies,” says the author.

Prukalpa and Varun are millennials, defined as those born between 1982-20. Millennials, or the GenY, dominate the employee rolls of most organisations. According to Kalpathi, an engineer and a management graduate, himself a millennial, these people are changing the way businesses think and perform. In response, organisations are forced to re-think the way they manage people and culture to utilise the full potential of this ‘disruptive’ generation. The book, brimming with details of people, ideas, companies, social organisations and many real-life situations, looks at the millennials through seven lenses—motivation, culture, innovation, digital technology, collaboration, learning and leadership.

On motivation, the author argues that the conventional carrot-and-stick approach may fail to motivate the knowledge worker of the 21st century. The challenge is to create an environment for innovation that can reap the benefits of individual and group creativity. “A workplace focused on maximising autonomy, mastery and purpose can set the right precedent for encouraging intrinsic motivation,” says he.

While this is true, the book also makes trite generalisations like “organisations that are continuously cued into the evolving needs of their millennial workforce will likely (sic) succeed over time.” Or, “Organisations that set up holistic workplace cultures invest in both their customers (and other important external stakeholders) and their employees. Such cultures are underpinned by a set of core values that empower employees and bring out the best in them.” Comments like these can be applied to all generations, not just millennials.

Also, the many organisations Kalpathi chooses to write about are at a nascent stage. Will they emerge into something that can be scaled up? Can they make an enduring mark, not just in one area? Do they have a ‘model’ to sustain? A lot of excitement about millennials is due to the wonders of digital technology which comprises new devices (smart phones, Internet of things), new connections (faster Internet access), and new tools (analytics, geo-location, artificial intelligence and so on). But such razzle-dazzle should not mesmerise us into believing that somehow those growing up in this ferment are different. People using them are the same. Their desires and motivation are the same. It is too wide-eyed to say that today’s youngsters are more socially conscious or that they need to be offered a radically different work environment to attract them, as if they are some special specie. What is striking about the book, however, is the treatment. The narration is detailed and engrossing and the examples are numerous. Quite an interesting read.

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