Nearly 1 in 2 Gen Y employees refuse to go the extra mile

Attracting and motivating them goes beyond monetary awards.

In a report released today, Hay Group, the global management consultancy, said that for companies to build a productive workforce in the downbeat global economy, companies need to actively motivate their workforce, in particular the Generation Y or next generation workforce.

Hay Group’s market assessment was based on a survey that was conducted in September 2012, covering over 505 Singapore-based companies (local and foreign-owned) from both the private and public sectors. They were polled on their business sentiments and salary and bonus projections for the next 12 months.

More than just monetary rewards

As increasing waves of Gen Y employees enter the workforce, organisations and HR professionals said that when it comes to attracting and motivating Gen Y talent, the challenge clearly goes beyond monetary rewards.

According to the report, 20 percent of the surveyed organisations said that implementing Education/Training financial assistance would help to attract and motivate Gen Y employees. The second most popular measure is job rotations (19 percent) and overseas attachment opportunities (18 percent).

Furthermore, 69 percent of the surveyed organisations are constantly encouraging employees to take reasonable risks, come up with innovative and creative ideas to work more efficiently and increase the effectiveness of the organisation.

However, only 55 percent of the surveyed organisations can positively say that their employees are motivated to go the extra mile or beyond their formal job responsibilities to increase their productivity and performance.

Mr Victor Chan, Regional General Manager (Singapore and ASEAN) for Productized Services, Hay Group, said, “The results imply that the employers’ efforts in motivating and engaging the workforce may not generate the desired outcomes, that is, higher levels of employee motivation. This could be attributed to the lack of understanding of the key engagement and enablement drivers which appeals to their employee population.”

He added, “Organisations must also retool their Total Reward framework to include non-cash rewards as a critical lever that can position them as employers of choice to attract and retain valuable talent resource in a tight labour supply market like Singapore.

“For instance, the provision of work life balance programmes can be used as a lever to improve employee motivation and drive higher levels of engagement. Some of the common work life balance schemes provided by organisations in Singapore are flexible working hours, work-from-home arrangements, part-time work arrangements, Family Day, and sports and wellness activities.

“Clearly, the opportunities currently available for organisations to improve their bottom line by actively motivating and engaging the next generation workforce have never been so good — and the time to act is now so as to derive a competitive advantage.”