Future of Work- Top 6 ways Millennials are Redefining Corporate Culture

We all acknowledge that every new generation that joins the workforce brings along fresh perspectives. The same goes for millennials increasingly joining the corporate world. What is distinct about the millennials entering the workforce is their passion and commitment towards redefining corporate culture. Millennials no longer believe in a hierarchical culture and strive for greater collaboration. Among the many small ways millennials are taking a step towards changing the future of work, there are 6 main areas of interest.

Embracing diversity of workforce

To begin with, millennials are embracing the diversity of thought and opinion around them. Until now, most corporate cultures had rigid boundaries. The norm was ‘like attracts like’ with an absolute lack of diversity leading to a dearth of new ideas. Increasingly, millennials are breaking those boundaries by welcoming diverse workforce.

Organizations with high millennial workforce see a more diverse spectrum of employees ranging from gender, disability to cultural diversity. Therefore, one way millennials are redefining future of work, is by redefining the demographic composition of the workforce.

Motivated by Passion

Next in line comes the source of motivation for millennials. Unlike their predecessors, millennials do not only follow a profit motive. They are equally motivated by a passion for something they believe in. While millennials understand that everything they indulge in should make economic sense, that is not the sole criterion for their operations.

This new generation entering the workforce believes that any action motivated by passion will ultimately reap monetary benefits. Therefore, unlike employees in their 40s or 50s who only see motivation in profit and loss terms, millennials have a passion behind their actions.

Pressing for Continuous Learning

Another way millennials are redefining corporate culture is by extending the idea of learning to the workplace. Most employees out there associate learning with schools and colleges and believe that it ends at the start of their workplace. However, millennials come with a different mindset. They believe that learning is a lifelong process and are pressing corporate organizations to invest in continuous learning.

Many millennial employees have been successful in convincing their employers to make available different e-learning platforms for the workforce. The idea is to keep upskilling and reskilling oneself to ensure one is able to survive in this fast changing economy and is ready for future of work.

Commitment to Social Responsibility

Stemming from their motivation by passion, comes the next factor redefining corporate culture by millennials. This has much to do with a commitment to social responsibility. CSR or corporate social responsibility has generally been a tick in the box for organizations in the form of pin sized donations here and there. Millennials are redefining this practice.

They are increasingly creating roadmaps and plans to strategically investing the CSR budgets to ensure real impact. Instead of simply seeing social responsibility as a feel good factor, millennials are aligning it with the core business strategy to create shared value for all stakeholders and shareholders. With this strong commitment to social responsibility, millennials are aligning passion, purpose and profits.

Investing in Ideas

Next in line comes the focus of millennials on ideas to redefine corporate culture and gear up for future of work. Growing up in an era of automation and robotics, millennials can differentiate between admin and high order work. Thus, they believe in investing in ideas and thoughts more than investing in human capital just for taking care of repetitive admin work. To put it simply, millennials believe that most of the admin work can be taken over by automation processes.

Therefore, according to them the new human talent joining the workforce must be capable of bringing new ideas and insights to the table in order to add value to any conversation. Thus, what is changing in the corporate culture is the type of workforce that is coming along. There is a significant change from just head nodding employees to those who have their opinion and ideas.

Focusing on Inclusion and Engagement

One of the final ways millennials are redefining corporate culture is by shifting the focus from just numbers to inclusion and engagement. Following from their drive to embrace diversity at their place of work, millennials also believe that inclusion and engagement are equally important. By inclusion, millennials mean that not only does a diverse workforce be in place, but it should also feel included.

Therefore, millennials are pressing organizations to conduct awareness and sensitization sessions, undertake culture audits, etc. The idea is to build a corporate culture where all different voices feel safe and secure and in the process bring all new perspectives and value to the final outputs.

To cut a long story short, millennials are fighting to redefine the foundations on which most corporate cultures are built. They are increasingly trying to circumvent the silos that exists in most organization to foster intra-organizational collaboration. While they are putting in every bit of effort possible, it is ultimately the receptiveness of the remainder of the organization that will determine if millennials are able to redefine their corporate culture to make it ready for future of work.