For a better Gen Beta

The current generation is unabashed and unapologetic with no moderation of emotions but the pandemic has necessitated a need for overlooking idealism and being more accepting of imperfections, writes Devishree Shekar

A majority of the next generation workforce would be individuals who have had working parents who gave them freedom and independence during their formative years. Their definition of needs is questionable as their basic necessities were always met and a lack of it was beyond imagination. The emptiness created by lack of parent’s time and attention was compensated by living with acquaintances at home through the “virtual world” of social media. Generation Beta workforce would be individuals who vented out anger spontaneously through their smartphones. There was no scope for reconsideration before communicating a message. Reconciliation was also easy with the ability to express emotions instantaneously and effectively through voice calls, text messages, emojis, videos, etc. We can say that Generation Beta would be more accustomed to interacting in a “virtual world” than in a “real world” and used to “instant emotional gratification”.

The root of emotions or behaviour was always uncharted territory for them. Emotional expressions have begun being as superficial as a smiley. They only see what meets the eye. The generation severely lacks emotional intelligence. With the ensuing pandemic where most parents are at home, there has been a drastic change in the environment with micromanagement. The inquisitiveness of Gen Beta is gratified by online search results that are abundant, diverse, conflicting and contradicting. There is an urge to view things the way they want them to be. They will always find sufficient evidence for their thoughts or views online instantaneously. The result is a generation that is unabashed and unapologetic with no “moderation” of emotions or behaviours, resulting in friction, arguments and resentment.

The next-generation workforce has been forced to accept pain, love, loss, intrusion of privacy and most importantly the reality of life and death all within a short span of time. By the time they join the workforce, there is a high possibility that they might still be lingering in the stages of depression, testing or acceptance.

Challenges to managers

The new workforce would be devoid of human interactions outside their immediate family. They would have grown with their own norms — with day and night, work/study timings dictated by themselves. They would thus be agnostic to timelines or deadlines, following standards or protocols and have an extremely short attention span. “Engaging” them would be a challenge. Having seen death closely at a young age, the impressionable minds would be more organised, strategic
and have “priorities” well defined. Collaboration and integration of work would need perfection in orchestration. The generation has learnt to live with minimalism and knows they can “SURVIVE” in the worst scenario having lived it. They would perform with complete zeal and dedication provided the purpose is internalised, else they quit, unfettered.

Types of employees

Reclusive introverts: Their boundaries of flexibility would be difficult to define, as “independence” would be utmost valued by them. Incentivising this workforce would involve careful deliberation and personalisation. Empowered with knowledge, capability, means and time, this workforce needs regular policing. They would have voluntarily blocked or ignored reality, built a world that functions by their rules. It becomes important to establish trust in these individuals and re-build bonds to re-engineer the social web.

Testing and acceptance: The formative years being marred with pain, isolation, a marathon of losses — of freedom and relations, minimalism and centricity of immediate family, this is the workforce who are open to change. They are flexible and accommodating as for them, work is only a means to an end. They have understood and accepted the reality of life, death and everything in between.

Would this mean an inversion of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Self Actualisation; Self Esteem; Love and Belonging; Safety Needs; Physiological Needs) as esteem for next-gen would stem from the realisation of self-actualisation? Love and belonging are needs that they have found within themselves as they have recouped losses. Safety is only an illusion to the next generation as they have been witness to the physical world collapsing before them. Trust in institutions is either lost or reinforced by the pandemic. The least important would be physiological needs, as people would come out strong and accustomed to surviving with minimalism.

An incentivising challenge

With the reality hitting hard that death is absolutely random and immediate, the next-gen workforce will require short-term goals. Productivity would need to begin within a day’s time with ‘Vertical takeoff,’ where onboarding needs to be relevant and quick. With low tolerance towards randomness and ambiguity bringing the next-gen workforce to understand the bigger picture and task details simultaneously, engaging the effervescent workforce and internalising the purpose would be a challenge. Companies, where project or domain boundaries are a blur, would then struggle in the long run as there is a challenge to even attract a workforce. The “psychographic analysis” would gain importance in deciding the potential fit of candidates for roles.

Accurate categorisation and personalised work contracts would be the need of the hour going forward. Standard work contracts, the ambiguity of the job and one-size-fits-all attitudes will need to be replaced by flexibility, personalised incentives and career paths. Team composition would demand high compatibility of behavioural traits. Remote working and diverse personal goals would need to be aligned and scheduled meticulously. The challenge for managers would be to seamlessly merge the virtual and physical world to overcome challenges of articulation. Managers would need to learn and play by the ‘I’s.

Individualism

Interpretation

Inference

Intuition

Internalisation

The importance of emotional intelligence to harness the intelligence quotient would make the upper management roles even more challenging and demanding. Demand for transparency and zero tolerance would mean that idealism would be a thing of the past and imperfections would need to be accepted and respected. Diversity would percolate deeper from being merely superficial to behavioural and emotional.
Pursuing passion — outdoor sports, art and creativity — would probably be the new incentives that managers need to accommodate and facilitate. The virtuous impact would be a necessity to sustain commitment from the workforce. Has the pandemic heralded the transformation? Only time will tell.

(The author is a product manager at a software services company in Bengaluru.)