Yukti’19 aims to provide a dais where the veterans from industry will interact and reflect with the budding manages on the recent trends and developments in the domain of Human Resource Management. This year’s panel discussion would focus on the changing nature of the workforce and attitudes towards traditional work culture. The conclave aims to provide the student fraternity at IIM Amritsar a holistic view of how the field of HR is being re-conceptualized by the changing perceptions of both the employers and employees towards work, thus creating a generation of managers who will be equipped with a deep understanding that will help them navigate in the dynamic business scenario of today. The idea is to analyse these challenges and conclude with tangible solutions for the same. With the two inter-twined themes, we wish to explore how to HR functions in an organisation should change to deal with this change of perception and make way for the new generation.
The perception of work and work culture is undergoing a change allowing for greater flexibility and higher level of engagement at the workplace. Organisations are looking to reduce costs by doing away with the traditional mechanism of hiring and training and instead engage readily available talent and skilled individuals who can get the same work done at a lower cost and with much more interest. This change of perception regarding work has given rise to what is called – the “Gig Workforce”. Organisations have to rethink their strategy and policies on hiring and recruiting and carefully weigh the pros and cons of utilizing the gig workforce. Though in its infancy in India, gig workforce is poised to play a significant role in the growth of India Inc. The panel discussion will be focused on the need (or lack thereof) for gig workforce, challenges involved with the panellists sharing their experiences relevant to the topic. The discussion would also be looking at the issue from the perspectives of both the employer and employee and finally the discussion would also look into the regulatory issues concerning the gig workforce.
Entry level jobs were used to be regarded as a gateway to a stable and long lasting career in an organisation. Today with increasing career options, the new generation workforce is eager to explore the many possibilities instead of hanging on in one place and are switching companies and roles every couple of years. This new generation or the Gen-Z is vastly different in their expectations and offerings while they are expected to bring unprecedented level of technology skills to the workplace, at the same time they want autonomy, flexibility and variety in their work. To make most out of the skills which the Gen-Z has to offer, organisations need to come up with new policies and practices to attract and retain the Gen-Z workforce. Organisations are also faced with the challenge of emerging technologies (especially automation and AI) – which are expected to disrupt the nature of the entry level roles that this generation is poised to fill. In this context the discussion will revolve on how organisations must redesign their HR policies to attract and retain the Gen-Z while also taking into consideration the fact that the entry level jobs continue to act as necessary training grounds for the incoming professionals.
