Ask a manager about the most important challenges they face in today’s workplace and they’re very likely to say: “How do I manage millennials?” Defined as the generation born during 1981-1996, millennials seem like strange creatures to many people. On one hand, they seem to be all about pay packets, instant gratification, and job-hopping. On the other, they seem to cherish meaningful experiences. Given these contradictory signals, what is a manager to do, short of tearing out one’s hair and giving up?
There’s no shortage of research about millennials. They value interesting work, a healthy work-life balance, working-hours flexibility, work of high quality that develops their skills, and giving back to society. They are also realistic, need positive reinforcement, and value autonomy and diversity in the workplace. They especially cherish work that is personally fulfilling and is socially conscious. They want work that is challenging, meaningful, and allows for creativity. In other words, they have very high expectations from work. It’s no wonder that many companies are seeing astronomical turnover rates among millennials. The old rules that made their parents loyal employees need to be thrown overboard for millennials. Clearly, what’s sauce for the goose is sludge for its goslings.
There’s a way out of this seemingly hopeless mess. As researchers at the Indian School of Business (ISB), we’ve surveyed thousands of managers and have come up with a new lens for looking at the future of work. We call it beingful work. The philosophy underlying it is called ‘Beingfulness’. It is the quality of experience associated with a way of life that is true to our whole being, which in turn enables our well-being. Simply put, whole being = well-being. It’s an equation as new as positive psychology and as old as ancient Indian wisdom.
What millennials want
Beingful work is work that fulfills the needs of our whole person or being, which includes our material, psychological, social, and higher needs. Our research shows that when the workplace (better yet, workspace) aims to fulfil the needs of our “whole person”, we can be more authentic at work, and also see our work as meaningful and engaging. These, in turn, greatly improve our well-being, given that more than half our waking life is spent at work. As a prominent scholar, Prof. Dave Ulrich, a professor of business at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and a leading scholar in the field of HR once put it, companies really need to “engage not only the body but the mind and soul of every employee.” Our own research shows that meaningful and engaging work accounts for more than 20 per cent of an employee’s overall well-being in life, which is large by all measures! Other studies show that employee engagement similarly adds more than 20 per cent to the company’s profitability, which is one way to measure corporate well-being.
The ideal workplace for millennials is, therefore, one that seeks to fulfil the needs of the whole person or being, including physical health, monetary, career and ambition, intellect, personality, emotions and feelings, sense of freedom, collaboration, service, desire for societal impact, connection to nature, doing the right thing, and spirituality needs. The key to this whole puzzle is to realise that seeking to fulfill these “whole person” needs will lead to positive energy, which results from positive emotions and feelings. Positive energy is to the workplace what gravity is to matter – it has an irresistible pull, and there’s no limit to it.