Monique Vieira Lessa
Lawyer at Marcos Martins Advogados
Nowadays, there is a lot of discussion about the transformations that the new generations are causing in the world and the peculiarities of their personalities, but little is said about their impact on labor relations and the need for companies to adapt in order to maintain high productivity in the market. The lack of a more attentive approach to this issue ends up leading to poor management of the professionals who work in the job market and, consequently, negative impacts on the company, such as the dreaded turnover , i.e. the high turnover of people/employees.
If a company wants to remain competitive in the job market , it needs to adapt and innovate, and to do so it needs to break old paradigms. The generations currently working in the market are: “Baby boomers”; Generation “X”; Generation “Y” (also known as “Millennials”) and Generation “Z”.
In a nutshell, “Baby Boomers ” are the generation of people born after the Second World War, between 1945 and 1964. These professionals, who have been on the market longer, occupy leadership and management positions in companies. This is due to the profile of this generation, which wants a fixed job, with the aim of maintaining stability, so in order to build a career and guarantee retirement they are frequent and permanent fixtures in companies.
The “X” generation, the successor to the “Baby Boomers”, are those born between 1965 and 1978 (approximately) and have as a distinguishing characteristic from the previous generation, the search for a balance between personal and professional life. Even so, they appreciate stability, which is why a professional from this generation is considered consistent.
Around the 1980s, the “Y” generation emerged, also known as “Millennials”, marked by the technological revolution and globalization. This generation has a creative, innovative and immediate profile, which is why professionals seek out the experiences they can gain in their work, even if it’s not in the same company, unlike previous generations.
Finally, we have generation “Z” (born in mid-1997) who are starting out in the job market or preparing to do so. While generation “Y” was introduced to connectivity, generation “Z” was born connected. They don’t know the world without the technology that is embedded in every aspect of their lives. That’s why it’s a generation marked by immediacy and impatience.
Thus, with this series of characteristics in the human element of the new generations (“Y” and “Z”), the market is demanding a process of reorganization. After all, the employment contract models that have long been practiced no longer fit the new profiles and in order to attract new talent, companies will need to adapt to these new values.
For older generations, a stable job with a reasonable working day that allowed them to manage other personal affairs was enough to keep them engaged and persistent in their positions. This is because the values cultivated by these professionals were related to quality of life and retirement.
At the moment, these values are no longer cultivated, not least because the new generation is experiencing instability in the political and economic framework, which is even having an impact on social security. In other words, the current generation knows that they won’t be able to retire any time soon.
That’s why we can say that the changes that new professionals require are cultural, for example, enabling employees to work more flexibly, allowing them greater freedom to manage their external activities, which is a hallmark of the “Y” and “Z” generations.
Only with these changes in culture and values will companies be able to retain new talent in order to maintain a team that is always qualified, productive and prepared to achieve good results. Not only that, but they will also be able to maintain a profitable business, as retaining talent is fundamental to saving a company’s resources.
In this respect, we can mention the creation of a new remuneration and benefits policy, changes to contracts to reflect the new way of working, implementation of new working hours, identification of new ways of controlling working hours or deliveries, investment in technologies that increase mobility and communication between professionals, among others.
In other words, there are countless possibilities for companies to adapt their working models to better suit all generations and, although labor legislation does not clearly provide for the new demands that today’s generations require, it has already suffered some impacts in 2017, with the Labor Reform, where, as far as possible, an attempt was made to update the legislation in line with the ways of working that have emerged over the years.
However, it is extremely important that the implementation of any change in a company’s culture is preceded by detailed planning in compliance with current labor legislation, as knowing the needs and priorities of employees is not enough to safely adopt new corporate strategies.
A technical approach is needed to ensure that this “new model” of working is correctly framed in the legislation, in order to avoid future losses from labor claims and possible inspections.
For this reason, legal assistance is essential for companies to be able to implement new talent retention strategies with legal certainty, which Marcos Martins Advogados is prepared to provide.
