Millennials are the key to implementing a successful digital transformation
As technological advancement drives a comprehensive transformation of the business environment, the familiarity with the latest technology prevalent amongst millennials and their tendency to share their expertise is the key to staying ahead of the curve, according to a senior HR executive at Deloitte.
Organisations in India and across the globe are working on integrating the latest technology within their operations. As this transformation reaches an advanced stage, the attention has now turned inwards towards the talent available in these organisations and whether it is conducive to realising the new potential.
Big Four accounting and advisory firm EY released analysis earlier this year predicting that the advent of AI would bring about a shift in the nature of skills required from the workforce, to the extent that one in ten jobs are expected to be entirely new in their composition of talent over the next five years.
So the expectations from the workforce are expected to transform comprehensively, and according to SV Nathan, Chief Talent Officer at Deloitte, millennials will play a central role in ensuring this transition is smooth. “Millennials are voracious consumers of new ways of doing things,” he declares.
In essence, the tendency amongst millennials to adopt new technology instantly and identify its strengths and weaknesses is a crucial tool for organisations going forth. Moreover, their general desire to share the benefits of this new technology is an organic catalyst for this change to spread to older generations within an organisation, according to Nathan.
“Millennials work on it by easing it through reverse mentoring, where they coach older generations in the usage of new-age technologies and processes. This in a way reverses the mentor-mentee relationship. It makes it easier for senior employees, and provides an excellent opportunity for the young mentor to get close to the senior professionals,” he explains.
In addition, millennials’ familiarity with new technology and their ability to instantly identify its flaws allows room for the growth and innovation within the broad industry 4.0 domains such as artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and others. “They (millennials) like to be change champions and will go beyond adopters, by taking charge and helping the change management in a seamless way.”
Outside of leveraging the natural qualities of millennials, Nathan advocates the adoption of a “start-up” like attitude even within large organisations, including the creation of a safe space for ideation to ensure that innovative capabilities are leveraged to ensure optimisation of operations.