As we enter the 21st century, the Baby Boomer generation are slowly making way for the Gen X and the millennials to lead in business. Known to be very driven and empowered in their decisions, our millennials have a different way of working and how they see success. They look beyond a stable job and pay and place a great deal of emphasis on the bigger purpose in life. ย How do millennials change the workplace, what are the challenges and perks of working with these new generation of professionals?
MIA speaks to Millennial Consultant, Vivek Iyanni, to find out more.ย
Vivek, you have such an inspirational story. To start the ball rolling, tell us more about your background, your career, and your passion.ย
I am a professional speaker and author, and I specialise on the topic of Engaging Millennials in the workplace. I started out as an entrepreneur, providing leadership training programs and team building programs for schools, polytechnics, ITEs and colleges back in 2013 and over the years, I decided to focus on the issues that youths have as they enter adulthood. That led me to write my first book, Empowering Millennials, launched in 2017. After the book was launched, I got the attention of managers and corporates who wanted to train their leaders to manage and engage with the younger generation. After working with organisations and speaking on this topic for a while, I decided to release my findings on engaging the Millennial generation in another book called Engaging Millennials. Working with the youths, either by speaking or through coaching/consulting makes me feel very grateful to be doing the work that has an impact in other peoplesโ lives.
You are an entrepreneur, coach, trainer, speaker and author. You have specifically chosen to focus your work on millennials. Tell us your big WHY.ย
My big WHY goes back to my core values of helping others, and having an adventure while pursuing growth. I believe that Millennials have been dealt a bad hand, suffered from bad media, and have our own unique struggles that the older generations didnโt have to experience. New trends such as social media, gig economy, working from home are all creating new problems which donโt come with simple answers. It is my belief that we cannot navigate a new world with an old map, so we have to lean-in to the problems that youths have today in order to find better solutions that are empowering in nature.
Currently, I feel that not enough is being done to empower youths to really pursue a life by design, and many are working hard to achieve other peoplesโ dreams. For instance, I have never dreamt in my childhood to become an author, because I could never see it as a career with an iron rice bowl. However, as I started looking into how the world really works, I realised that the opportunities are there, but we are just not reaching out to grab it because of all the other internal things that hold us back. So it is my dream to help people to empower themselves to live a life of their own design, a life of fun, freedom, fortune and fulfilment.
I understand that your new bookย Engaging Millennials is a product of your years of working with the younger generation in organisations. Give us deeper insights on it.
I was inspired to write this book when I realised that many organisations are not keeping up with what the young generation want from the workplace. Over the past few decades, there have been financial crises, technological developments and even parenting styles have changed drastically and yet – organisations have not changed their ways of managing their biggest and strongest asset – their people.ย
The Millennials and Gen Z are coming into the workforce with a completely different idea of what it means to them to be successful. Thus, I feel it is so important for our leaders today to be able to engage with our leaders of tomorrow in order to sustain the business in a profitable manner. This means building an organisational culture that is Millennial inclusive – which takes into consideration what motivates them and engages them as employees in the workforce. If the leaders can get this right, people would be so much happier in their lives.ย
Engaging Millennials is a book written for HR Leaders, SME Bosses, and Directors who want to understand this generation better and be able to recruit, reward, and retain them better within their teams and organisations. It showcases the mistakes leaders make that repel Millennials from their organisations and expands on the 7 fundamentals that will make their organisation Millennial-Friendly and inclusive. It is out in the Times and Kinokuniya bookstores.ย
In your experience working with many millenials, tell us what makes them different and unique?
Millennials are tech savvy and communicate differently – they have developed their own lingo and text abbreviations and are very resourceful. Thanks to the internet, they are very vocal about issues that concern people around the globe. They like to challenge the norms to build better outcomes and increase efficiency in the things they do. They are more loyal to themselves than they are to the companies and are constantly seeking growth in all areas that they pursue. They also engage well in a supportive environment and community and believing in doing work that brings about a positive impact to the world.
What are the challenges organisations face in dealing with millennials? How can we strike a balance in creating an innovative and creative workplace where everyone thrives?
First and foremost, the biggest challenge organisations face is in creating a two-way communication channel between the Millennials and management. In many organisations, the conversation is purely a one-way street. The lack of dialogue and conversations about what Millennials want and expect from organisations prevents the possibility of developing a space of psychological safety. When there is a fear of communicating openly, people are afraid to say things like โI donโt knowโ or โI made a mistakeโ or โI disagreeโ. Striking a balance in creating an innovative and creative workplace where everyone thrives starts with having an open conversation and two-way dialogue about what we all want.