“It’s not good to hire the right people in my business now, do you face the same problem?”
I guess this has always been a problem for SME business owners like myself and this is just one of the many complains that we talked about everytime we gather around over a coffee.
And one fine day this person gave me a pretty interesting answer.
“Maybe you just ain’t doing the right thing to attract the right people.”
More often than not we will put the blame on the problem when we face it instead of asking ourselves if the problem lies within us.
While we were having such conversations, one of the other questions that always pop up would be about how we handle and work with younger staffs. I guess it’s very common for employers to find that the kids these days just isn’t as good regardless of attitude or quality of work. Don’t quote me, it’s not my words but more of what I hear from others. The narratives are always revolving around the fact that “they are spoilt.”, “they are too privileged.”, or even like “they are too soft.”
Well, not Elijah, Head of Business Development from Shopee. I guess we do not need much introduction for this e-commerce platform. In fact I’m such a big fan that I log in daily just to browse items to kill time. (Goodbye productivity. :x)
I digress. So I actually met Elijah at the recent Todo Todo Skills Marketplace @ Central Singapore. If you find this name familiar, that is probably because you heard me talking about it last year. So much has changed over the last year. It was also because of this event where I found out more about being a youth career guide which I ended up being one. The journey has been more than rewarding so far.
So just a little refresher in case you are unfamiliar with Todo Todo Skills Marketplace; The event is a joint effort by National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) and People’s Association (PA) to form a new career support initiative, specifically for fresh graduates and young professionals, managers, executives (PMEs). The two partners, with a combined youth network of 750,000, launched the new integrated online-to-offline approach to help new job entrants achieve professional success.
With this initiative, youths no longer need to wait for luck and opportunity to meet the right people to guide them but instead they actively seek help within the network. The network does not provide you with successful businessmen telling you about how good they are but instead, we are talking about fellow young adults who have been in the workforce for about 10 years where they can share their own experiences that are more relatable.
Elijah was one of the guest speakers for that day. Besides him , there were other talks/masterclasses, career sharing session by youth career guides like myself, and also networking sessions where you can talk to industry professionals from/hiring employers from different companies such as Mileslife, FinTech Academy, Tata Consultancy and even Shalom Movers. You might be wondering if Shalom Movers were there to hire movers but fun fact for you guys, they are actually hiring staffs for different functions like digital marketing person.
So Elijah was sharing with me about his very own experience with working with millennials and interestingly he has nothing but praises for them. Here’s some answers I managed to get from the man himself.
Your comments about working with millennials.
They are the hardest working generation.
They don’t treat a job like 9-5, it’s their life.
It’s not just a job. Overtime is not an issue.
They care about the environment and more. It’s about purpose and value, and they have to make sure it’s inline with their own beliefs.
So what do you look for when it comes to hiring?
1 word - Attitude. Skills can be learnt easily but attitude is what that counts.
What’s the most sort for skill these days?
Data Scientist and Digital Marketer.
Is Shopee and their staffs 4.0?
We are born digital. We are all about making sure we are ready for any changes in the industry. We make sure our staff are constantly innovating and staying relevant in the industry. The industry is very volatile so we have to evolve and be resilient to changes.
One tip for our millennials and work.
As cliche as it sounds, “"Do What You Love, and You'll Never Work Another Day in Your Life”.
Conclusion...
So I guess there is no shortcut to success when it comes to working with them. As an employer you have to be yourself, you have to talk to them to know them and know that they want. It is no longer just about money.
I guess good Human Resources practice especially these days is all about how the organisation give the employee a sense of purpose as compared to back in the days during our parents’ era where it’s all about employers paying staffs money to do their work and call it a day.
As much as we commonly like to call the millennials the strawberry generation, everyone has to start somewhere and employers need to give them some time to grow and invest even more time to know them better and help them to be the best version of themselves that will benefit the organisation.
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