A Report on Managing Younger Workers: Recruitment and Development

This report critically analyzes the management of younger workers, focusing on recruitment and development strategies within the workplace. It begins by examining the impact of younger employees, stereotypes, and generational differences, particularly Generation Y. The report delves into the recruitment of Generation Y, emphasizing the importance of employer branding and utilizing technology. It then explores the development of Generation Y employees, highlighting the need for personal development, training, and flexible work arrangements. The report provides several recommendations for HR managers, including understanding the characteristics of Generation Y, gathering relevant data, and adapting recruitment channels. Furthermore, it suggests training and development plans aligned with organizational goals, fostering knowledge transfer, and supporting employee potential. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of investing in training, innovation, and creating an inclusive work environment to harness the capabilities of younger workers. The report also highlights the importance of understanding the unique characteristics of Generation Y to facilitate effective management and integration within the workplace.

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Running head: MANAGING YOUNGER WORKERS
Managing younger workers at workplace
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Course:

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Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................3
First: critical analysis of younger workers....................................................................4
Second: Recruitment & development of Generation Y.................................................6
Third: recommendations................................................................................................8
Conclusions..................................................................................................................10
References....................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
People around the world have similarities and differences according to their
social identity. According to Byrd (2014), the common social features create shared
identities based on people's practices. Accordingly, the differentiation among people
according to their race is the outcome of social categorization classified by politicians
to group people according to their relevant social class.
The human capital represents the most valuable tangible resource to the
organization according to the resource-based theory. It represents a core competence
that could be transformed into a sustainable competitive advantage. Therefore,
recruiting diverse human factor in terms of age, gender, religion, attitude and caste is
beneficial and complex at the same time for the managers and the employees as well.
The work environment should be well prepared to control conflicts that might occur
because of diversity and maintain stability for a productive environment (Saxena,
2014).
The following section provides a critical analysis of younger workers, the
selected topics to be critically analyzed are recruitment and employees development.
Finally, recommendations are provided.
First: critical analysis of younger workers
The human resources management (HRM) at every organization has its
practices, but according to Alcázar, Fernández, & Gardey (2013), the universalistic
approach of HRM combines HR strategies into practice by introducing the best HRM
practices that support the organizational performance. Successful practices could be
applied in the field of diversity and cross-cultural management at the workplace.

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These practices, reveal the importance of intercultural training, flexible compensation,
work-life balance and assessment of participative performance (Kulik, 2014).
Lauring (2013), argues that diversity management main role is to prevent
discrimination among people at the workplace. In recent years, organizations have
moved to consider diversity to be a strategic resource that could perform to diversify
their business rather than create problems. The rationale of such a multicultural
approach is based on the ideas that people with diverse skills and networks can benefit
the organization at a large scale. This approach requires that the work environment
should be prepared to make diverse employees feel included. On the other hand, the
majority of the employees might resist this initiative for their fear of losing their
positions, dominance, instability or the benefits they gain to the stake of diverse
employees that represent the minority. This means that the majority feel afraid of
losing their social identity safety that refers to feeling safe within a particular team
context. Social identity safety could be physical, like group recognition, or it could be
effective, like, organizational recognition for the employee belonging to a specific
group (Jansen, Otten, & Van der Zee, 2015).
1.1 The impact of younger employees at the workplace
Today society is highly attracted to aging. Aaltio, Salminen, & Koponen
(2014), argue that ages of their coworkers affect both older and younger workers at
workplace. The older managers tend to treat older and younger workers equally, but
younger managers provide more support to younger employees. Younger workers are
highly involved in discretionary behaviors. Organizations with higher younger
employees' percentage tend to invest in training or innovation to enhance the younger
employees' capabilities. Employers should pay much attention to generational
differences for the reason of that age represents a fundamental element that identifies

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the employee and affects his point of view and hence his performance level (Joseph,
2014).
1.2 Stereotypes of younger employees
Zaniboni et al. (2014), as cited in Rozman, Treven, & Cancer (2016), argues
the importance of the role of age in the relationship between job characteristics and
job attitudes because of the aging population that will result in job redesign to enable
workers to perform successfully. The fact that younger employees work in a more
motivated manner, ambition and quick learners compared to older employees does not
condition their loyalty to the workplace, on the contrary, they are sent to be less
emotionally stable. Stereotypes of younger employees characterize them to be
immature, unreliable and disloyal, switch jobs quickly, innovative, energetic skillful
in dealing with new technology (Joseph & Selvaraj, 2015).
1.3 Differences across sectors
The existence of a broad spectrum of ages at workplace led some managers to
believe that organizations are biased towards specific age groups according to the
industry characteristics. For example, the hospitality industry is considered to be
highly biased to the younger generation for the nature of its work (CIPD, 2014).
1.4 Generation Y
Generation Y is also called Eco Boomers because a percentage of them are
children of the Baby Boomers who represent generation X, they came during the age
of the technology boom. They are called the Net Generation or the Millennial
generation because of their influence of digital technology. Generation Y is the first
generation raised to consider girls are equals to them. This generation is characterized
to be an independent, entrepreneurial hard worker, techno-savvy and flexible.
According to Huybers (2011), Generation Y has extreme awareness of the

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environmental issues and sustainability, diverse generation with an open mind and
high acceptance for differences of age, race and gender and has solid moral standards
compared to Generation X.
Second: Recruitment & development of Generation Y
2.1 Recruiting Generation Y
Organizations consider the population aging problem, the matter that leads
them to make a demographic shift in an extraordinary and urgent motion. They tend
to recruit high-performing people among the Gen Yers. The process of recruiting
Generation Y is considered a highly challenging process that faces all types of
organizations. The employers should clearly understand the millennials to be able to
attract their interest
2.1.1 Employer brand matters
The recruiting process of Generation Y starts a long time before taking the
steps of job posting and interviews. The Gen Yers search for the organizations with
values similar to their values, especially those who are concerned with corporate
social responsibility (CSR), enhancing diversity and support them to realize their
potential (Ali & French, 2019). Therefore, the organization reputation is very
important, it represents an image that the Gen Yers wish to belong to and be proud of
supporting its work. Gen Yers might not be seeking a job, but the spread of news
across social media channels play a significant role in creating good or bad
organization reputation through the people expressed opinions and reviews. Gen Yers
look for more than just a job to be recruited in, therefore, successful recruitment
involves hiring managers that are able to promote for their organizations and
convenience the employee to work for (Smith, 2016).
2.1.2 Employing technology in recruitment

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Gen Yers are easily approached through online web recruitment or social
media platforms. The Millennials are technology thrift, which drives employers to
improve their communication style and reduce the gaps between the recruiting stages.
Also, they have to use modern media to attract Gen Yers by generating positive
electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM). Many organizations succeeded in recruiting Gen
Yers through LinkedIn, Facebook and professional recruiting platforms, like Indeed
and Monster Job (Smith, 2016; Ryan & Derous, 2016).
2.2 Generation Y Development
The Millennials are not attracted to high salaries and benefits, they consider
these benefits to be routine job characteristics. Instead of this, they aspire to gain
valuable benefits, like personal development, training, paid time off and flexibility in
work schedule. Technology advances have expanded the opportunities to work
flexibly, telecommuting and job sharing. Accordingly, organizations that offer these
advantages to employees are the employers of choice to the millennials (Smith, 2016).
2.2.1 Emphasizing and supporting personal development
PricewaterhouseCoopers survey in 2014, as cited in Smith (2016), revealed
that generation Y is highly committed to their personal learning and development.
Having received structured learning at an early age, these employees thrive to
continue learning and gaining new experiences. Therefore, participating in education,
training and learning should be highly supported by the employers. Organizations can
engage the Gen Yers employees in rotation programs to gain diverse experiences and
get the chance to interact with other employees throughout the organization, the
matter that facilitates knowledge sharing and enables the organization to be a learning
organization. From a leadership viewpoint, the millennials expect that their leader acts

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as a coach who supports them to develop on the personal and professional levels.
They are highly self-motivated and ambition and can learn by doing more than
dictating to them what should be done. Leaders should support them in tackling
significant projects, empower them and delegate authorities. Leaders can maximize
millennials performance by enabling them to take risk, make mistakes and learn from
them. Despite this, getting specific guidelines and concrete instructions, enable the
Millennials to be feel freer and generate creative ideas. The leaders will consider that
Gen Yers are satisfied with reaching out any employee across the organization.
Despite this, leaders have to establish boundaries and stress on the work ethics to
mitigate any inappropriate behavior in advance (Smith, 2016).
Third: recommendations
3.1 Recruiting Generation Y
Huybers (2011), recommends that the HR managers should consider certain
issues when recruiting Gen Yers; they have to understand the Millennials
characteristics, their background, economic and social influences of their work style,
ambition to progress and learning and time management. Also, it is important to know
and anticipate their reaction to other generations at the workplace for better
recruitment and placing and effectively manage disparity at the workplace. Moreover,
HR managers are required to understand different motivational tools to be used at the
workplace to effectively manage the Millennials. The HR managers can lead the
organizational change to move towards creating a culture that attracts the best Gen
Yers talents. In addition, the HR managers should gather the right data to be able to
measure the age profile at the workplace. This data should be stored and updated
annually to be able to monitor the progress of the percentage contribution to the
workforce of Generation Y, their personal characteristics and performance level.

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Also, collected data helps managers to challenge age-diverse groups through inclusive
leadership development programs and training. In addition, the recruitment channels
should be open to new social media and recruitment platforms to increase the
diversity of these channels (CIPD, 2014).
3.2 Generation Y Development
The HR managers should plan for training and development for the younger
employees. These plans should be aligned with the organization's strategic goals to
enable the employees to accelerate their performance and meet their specified roles.
Also, they are recommended to engage with different generations to enable
knowledge transfer across generations. This process could be done through social
media channels, direct communication or choosing a mix of them to satisfy all parties
and enhance knowledge sharing process. Moreover, training managers will enable
them to better manage younger employees at different age levels. This requires
managers to be mindful when developing HR policies and practices and invest in
every employee at every age to enable in reducing the gap between them. Managers
and senior leaders are recommended to enable and support every employee to
maximize their potential because people tend to achieve high performance when they
feel that they are valued and their ideas are considered and implemented (CIPD, 2014;
Winter & Jackson, 2014).
Moreover, environmental elements and workplace design are essential in
developing employees' skills. The physical design should be open to enhance ideas
sharing and collaboration that contribute to people development (Smith, 2016).
Conclusions

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Organizations with higher younger employees' percentage tend to invest in
training or innovation to enhance the younger employees' capabilities. The fact that
younger employees work in a more motivated manner, ambition and quick learners
compared to older employees does not condition their loyalty to the workplace.
Gen Yers search for the organizations with values similar to their values,
especially those who are concerned with CSR, enhancing diversity and support them
to realize their potential. They look for more than just a job to be recruited in,
therefore, successful recruitment involves hiring managers that are able to promote for
their organizations and convenience the employee to work for.
The Millennials aspire to gain valuable benefits, like personal development,
training, paid time off and flexibility in work schedule. They are highly self-motivated
and ambition and can learn by doing more than dictating to them what should be
done. Leaders should support them in tackling significant projects, empower them and
delegate authorities.

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