Upskilling, new roles, diversity key areas to retain Gen Z talent: Experts

Gone are the days when the majority of job roles across sectors were taken by millennials and baby boomers. With changing times and evolving technologies, a shift has been witnessed across all sectors where job roles have been taken by Gen Z employees. With such a transition, a group of panellists have identified three areas such as providing upskilling opportunities and diverse roles to Gen Z employees, maintaining diversity across organisations and open and transparent communication and diverse work culture to retain young talent. The panel discussion took place at the Fortune India 40 under 40 event in Bangalore on October 6.

"If you go to the root cause of why they leave, it’s more changing roles perhaps and less changing organisations. And as long as organisations are able to offer them roles which are distinctive, I think the organisation would be in a good space," says C V Venkataraman, MD, Titan Company.

"Every company needs to develop a portfolio of roles for Gen Z to move every two to three years. The most important reason they (GenZ) leave is because they want to do a new thing. And New things can be within the company," he adds.

According to Manish Tiwary, Country Manager India, Consumer Business, Amazon India, there is a distinct need for upskilling and learning amongst GenZ employees. Elaborating further, Tiwary says, "GenZ wants to work with companies they feel proud about and being able to associate with. It goes far beyond compensation. And they expect the companies to solve crucial problems. If the companies don’t, they believe that their values and the company’s values do not match. So, the combination of skilling, culture in the company and does the company’s value match with that of GenZ values, when these three come together, it works well," he says.

"Careers are no longer about promotion in the traditional sense, our employer proposition is we would be at the leading edge of technology and we would offer so many diverse experiences that you want. Provide them a conducive environment, but give them enough chance to learn and skill themselves that is probably the driving force of where they would want to continue their career," he adds.

Shruti Shibulal, CEO & Director, Tamara Leisure Experiences, says that in her experience "purpose" is one of the driving forces that connects organisations with GenZ employees. "This generation has been through a lot like COVID-19 and recession, and they have gone through so many ups and downs in the last couple of years that it is very important for GenZ to look at leaders as people of inspiration, and people who openly communicate and transparent with them," she says.

According to Shibulal, the company has recently launched the 'Responsible Hotelier of Tomorrow Programme.' Under the initiative, the company provides internships for college students in terms of upskilling and sustainable business practices such as community services, waste management, and energy efficiency amongst others. "What we found is that young people were very interested in this perspective and they wanted to understand how is the industry going to look in the future. And how the industry is going to apply these values that they (GenZ) believe in regards to being responsible and being sustainable. So the conversation needs to revolve around 'why do we exist rather than what we do.' I think the "purpose” is at the forefront," says Shibulal.

According to Hemant Malik, divisional chief executive, Food Business, ITC, organisations need to continually learn from what GenZ are expecting from them. "When you define GenZ they are 25-26 years. Most people join organisations at 23-24 years old.  I think the biggest point for us is to learn what this generation (GenZ) is expecting. And the most important thing is how much you can learn for yourself," says Malik.

According to Malik, despite being a traditional organisation, 32% of its workforce are below 30 years of age.

"The second point is discussions around mental health. It is an eye-opener that people are so comfortable talking about mental health and the question that was raised was what the company is doing for mental health. The other area that the GenZ generation is looking forward to is if they can work on their passions and how work can be made more engaging... I think in terms of policy changes, these conversations make a lot of difference and that’s how you drive change and talk diversity, language and the senior people need to continually evolve and learn," Malik says.