Handle With Care

It is not uncommon today to come across a twenty-something-year-old with stars in his eyes. Ask any youngster today about his career aspirations and immediately comes the reply that he wants to become successful, assume a leadership position. They want to achieve levels of success in a decade that their predecessors managed to reach in careers spanning several decades. With the country poised to grow, new sectors emerging and a large workforce under the age of thirty, what do organisations need to watch out for and what do they need to do to manage the career aspirations of this new breed of professionals?

The expectations that young professionals exhibit today are almost past the brink of being unrealistic. Now, every professional wants to reach the top quickly. Sameer Walia, managing director, SmartCube describes his observation about the mindset among young professionals, “Nowadays within 10 years a fresher wants to reach a senior level. Earlier an individual’s career span used to be 30-40 years. Now with individuals wanting to achieve almost everything by the time they reach their early thirties, the career span has shortened to just 10-15 years. If you do achieve everything by that age, then what is left to achieve? And if they do achieve everything, where do such individuals move forward from such a stage?” Infact this trend has become more prevalent now as compared to 3-5 years ago.

Joel Perlman, managing director, Copal Partners, says that a combination of factors is responsible for this mindset among young employees. He explains, “The media in the country keeps reporting about B-school pass outs who earn salaries of 5 crores and 10 crores. Even the institutes want to highlight the high salaries that their students earn. Neither focuses on the average salaries that these students are earning, driving up expectations for the rest. In addition to this, India has moved towards a consumerist society. Indians have a choice of imported labels and brands for any kind of product. The mall culture has provided an avenue for people to go out and spend money. Obviously, to sustain such a lifestyle more money is required resulting in a desire for faster growth and higher salaries.”

It is interesting to note that employees in India, China and other developing economies have higher expectations about their career growth rates as compared to employees in UK or USA. Perlman attributes the difference in attitudes among employees to the difference in growth between the economies. Employees in UK and USA are aware about the maturity of their economies and the resultant growth of their countries. Hence, they do not develop unrealistic expectations from their careers.

An employee with high career aspirations is likely to get frustrated with his job if he feels that he is unable to meet the standards that he has set for himself. This could lead to him underperforming in his job and ultimately jump ship. If a fresher comes in with the attitude ‘I want to reach the top’, it shows the presence of ambition that he has to work towards his goal but such employees need to be handled with care. Perlman believes, “The key to managing such individuals is to give them a timeline. One needs to start talking about the logistics and plan a career. Get the employee to realise the time involved in achieving a certain target.” To retain an employee it is important that the organisation is transparent with them about the career path charted out for them. He needs to be excited about the milestones he needs to clear to meet his goals. Walia adds, “One needs to counsel employees regarding their expectations from their careers. Students passing out from MBA schools want to become leaders. The process involved in assuming a leadership position needs to be explained to employees. One cannot become a leader without hands-on experience.”

The ideal situation would be to counsel every youngster starting out his career with an organisation. To ensure that the task is manageable, it should be jointly shouldered by line managers and not just the HR department. The country has just started its journey towards becoming a developed nation, and its most important resource – its people – need to be channelised in the right direction.

• 简体中文