New Delhi: While millennials are expected to account for 75 percent of the global workforce by 2025 , business executives are not thinking too much about recruiting millennials. This is one key insight stemming from a new research study from Epicor Software Corporation, a global provider of industry-specific enterprise software, which underscores the need to address human capital and next-generation workforce requirements to fuel business growth.
India stands out in the global survey with 65 percent of Indian business leaders saying that recruiting millennials was a “fairly significant” or “major” focus for their organizations, compared to 39 percent of global business leaders. While India leads the way, the global survey results reveal a critical disconnect as “technology leadership” and a “skilled workforce” were top growth stimulants identified by those polled elements that today’s highly connected, technologically advanced millennials can well facilitate.
The manufacturing industry increasingly relies on technology to drive growth. It’s estimated that nearly 3.5 million manufacturing jobs will need to be filled in the U.S. over the next decade. With the working age population shrinking and Baby Boomers heading into retirement, millennial talent will be a key element to drive business growth in the next decade.
“The relative indifference in recruiting millennials to the workplace is especially surprising considering they are the fastest-growing generation in the U.S. workforce, and are both technology proficient and digital literate. Businesses that recognise and move to leverage millennial talent can gain significant competitive advantage in today’s age of digital disruption,” said Celia Fleischaker, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, Epicor Software.
“Our research reveals many human resource challenges stand in the way of business growth that technology can help address. Organisations must re-think their relationship with digitally-literate workers and retool their organisations to attract, connet and empower this next-generation work for cevia cloud, mobile, analytics and other enabling technologies.”
Fortunately, many organisations are working to develop the technology infrastructure that is necessary to attract and support the workforce of the future. Nearly 80 percent (7 percent) of business leaders surveyed have made, or are making, investments in integrated IT infrastructure.
Sitting at the intersection of workers and systems to unite information and execution, technology plays a vital role in reducing complexity, improving the quality of work life, and enhancing productivity. Freeing valuable staff from mundane tasks was considered important by 68 percent of those polled whereas using technology to automate key processes, along with allowing key individuals to focus on more stimulating tasks, was cited as a top goal of 67 percent of those surveyed.
What’s more, technology is necessaryto prepare businesses for the next iteration of work encompassing robotics and artificial intelligence.
“Today we’re talking about workforce strategies concerning millennials;tomorrow we’ll be talking about key considerations in the next workplace evolution-when millennials meet machines,” said Fleischaker.
Without the right technology in place, organizations can run the risk of staff overload resulting in burn out and attrition. Forty-three percent of business execs are concerned that growth can increase workloads to a level that places too much pressure on staff prompting key people to leave to work in a more strategic, knowledge-centered role at a larger competitor (40 percent), or at a company with better technology support (2 percent).Ensuring access to all the information employees need to do their jobs was considered to be an important factor in retaining key staff by almost all Indian business leaders compared to three-quarters (77 percent) of those surveyed globally. (ANI)