Great challenges accompany social progress and change. It seems like it was only yesterday that managers were struggling with how to attract and retain members of Generation X. Today, managers need to concernthemselves with the challenges of the “Post-80’s” group: Generation-Y (Gen-Y).
In China, since members of Gen-Y account for less than one third of the total workforce population, traditional management practices are likely to remain effective for some time. But the day when Gen-Y represents the majority of China’s workforce is not far off . In order to plan for this certain future, Chinese enterprises should begin to focus on the challenges posed by Gen-Y now—and prepare strategies that will foster a harmonious relationship with Gen-Y.
Under such circumstance, IBM China initiated one research project called "Generation Y: Challenges and Strategies for HR Management", partnering with Universum and Egon Zehnder to collect concerned topics related to the working lives of Chinese members of Gen-Y, including salary and benefits, career development expectations, preferred management style, and so forth. During the research period, two or 3 sharing sessions were conducted separately hosted by IBM China and Egon Zehnder in Beijing and Shanghai. We found a rising concern toward how to manage the workforce of Generation Y more effectively. I still remembered an interesting sharing case addressed by one HRD from a famous online game company. She said, more and more Generation Y employees came to management positions while managing the same Generation Y teams. They are not enough mature in terms of people management skills, but with energy and motivation to achieve high performance. The confilcts are always embeded in the real life, e.g., they want more flexibility at work, want more immediate feedbacks from their boss, and express their personal feelings more straight forward and so forth. There was one case happened during an internal training session. Those attendees felt the technical capability of the external trainer was less strong than them, and then, people just felt the training session meaningless and suddenly left out the training room toghether.... the HRD had to persuade them to come back to the training room. More cases outlined what Gen-Y people look like: Members of Gen-Y hope “to be promoted after working one or two years in a job”; they“hate the strict rank and file, but yearn for equality and freedom of expression”; “they are unwilling to work overtime, but hope to enjoy work rather than being a slave to it…”
Based on the analysis of the unique characteristics of Gen-Y’s demands throughtout the survey, it is not difficult to see that Gen-Y is asking for a higher level of management from human resources and business managers. However, for companies that have understood the needs of Gen-Y, it is much easier to face the question of how to manage Gen-Y employees. Following are some coping strategies for Chinese enterprises to learn and refer to.
- Creating Conditions to Help Maintain the Balance Between Work and Life for
Gen-Y - Helping Gen-Y Employees Develop Career Competitiveness
- Establishing Good Communication and Feedback Mechanisms for Gen-Y Employees
- Giving Gen-Y Employees Promotions or a Change of Job Functions Every Two Years
- Providing Competitive Pay and Additional Housing Subsidies
- Establishing Idols
The white paper was pusblished jointly by 3 companies in Dec, which could be used for your internal sharing without any commericial purpose. You can download here from my box file. Wish it could enlight your thinking for better managing your Gen-Y people. 
