How Singapore Can Deal with a Multi-Generational Workforce

  • Posted by admin
  • 19 August 2013
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With the technological revolution in the previous last two decades, people's tastes and preferences have changed. The altered lifestyles have created generation gaps and for organizations and various businesses, it is becoming a challenging task to efficiently handle the different generation.

It is true that businesses prefer experienced individuals as they do not have to spend much on training and immediately start getting results, but the young graduates are also important, since they are the ones that will handle the future. While recruiting, to offer a same job with more or less salary to an employee from a different age group is considered unfair by many. Due to the economic crisis, many retired adults in Singapore have expressed the will to continue working and many companies hired them but on a lower pay scale. However, it is unwise for organizations to undermine the importance of either the retired employees or the young graduates.

Education does have an impact on a person's performance; however the importance of experience can never be understated. It is the old and experienced people that have seen successes and failures which make them the suitable candidates for senior executive positions and also to train young employees. These positions require first hand market knowledge, serious decisions and leadership experience that are rarely present in inexperienced fresh graduates. Therefore, recruiters need to be flexible during the hiring stages.

The same applies for the newer generation. Experience is not all that a job demands. Younger people are much more driven, enthusiastic, hard working and determined to reach a successful position in life. With information technology transformation, they are the most adept to these software and hardware while the old ones may turn out to be quite rigid. The same individuals cannot lead forever and businesses need young individuals to be trained so they can take it forward. However, the modern generations in Singapore find it difficult to settle down with the older ones and have a different set of preferences and tastes.

Information technology and the Internet have created so much flexibility and convenience that a large number of young people do not prefer sitting at the same desk for long office hours. Instead, they chose to work from home or on the move while the older ones may spend overtime in offices. Businesses in Singapore need to cater to different age groups differently and set different standards for them. The same rules and regulations for all age groups might result in chaos and prime focus should be paid on work place satisfaction.

In the end, it is not the experience or the age that really matters. Instead the skills and intelligence of each individual matters the most. Businesses need to hire people from all age groups solely on the basis of their skills and offer them a different set of opportunities. An offer that attracts a 60 year old might not attract a 24 year old at all. It is foolish on behalf of any company to discriminate on the basis of age. Companies such as BMW and Vita Needle have already disproved these misconceptions.

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