Hiring in the post millennial environment will be largely influenced by the current trends in the industry, new technology, and evolving regulations. It has been well established that the traits of the millennial generation have made a lasting impact on employment in the United States and abroad. To a large extent, the millennial attitudes were shaped by the environment. The recent recession and high rate of unemployment has shifted the behaviors of millennials. Trust and loyalty towards employers have eroded and long term employment is often a rarity. The American Dream is becoming more myth than reality as the gap widens between the social classes.

Nevertheless, we have yet to see the full extent of hiring practices after the Great Recession. The current generation diverges from yesteryear. Despite this bleak view, there are a number of benefits that a company will experience with the next generation. Skills and experience are becoming acquired more informally, typical job responsibilities are becoming larger in scope, and labor laws are having little effect to stop what is taking place. It is hard to say if the easy-going employment before the Great Recession was part of some bubble and what we are experiencing now is a market correction or if political and financial powers are turning a cold shoulder on progress for workers.  Unemployment might be at a low, but the job environment is far from the same.

What is sure is that the technology-aided millennial generation is equipped with skills that allow them to be far more productive than their predecessors in terms of work output. Typical needs for millennials include unique challenges solved by creativity, communication through a horizontal organization, and fast results for their work. They prefer work-life balance and are connected to vast networks.

Hiring millennials are also being done through these virtual networks more frequently. In this article we will consider what the future holds for the next generation and what it means for employers.

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The Connected Generation

Smartphones and social networks allow millennials to share their day and communicate with people across the globe. The speed of information traveling from person to network to person is breathless. It is still the tip of the iceberg. The next generation will utilize these networks to a far greater extent to complete work tasks.

Currently, only a handful of millennials are taking advantage of information networks that expand beyond an organization. One of these networks that are currently thriving is within the development community. Information exchanges such as Stack Overflow and GitHub give developers the ability to learn and share among a group of students, employees, and academics. The impact that these exchanges have on the industry is immense. It goes beyond simple information sharing. These groups are collaborating and solving problems. The interesting part is that developers of these groups belong to various companies and are forming informal partnerships to complete common tasks. Employees from Google and Microsoft are unwittingly working together on the front lines of developers and far away from the boardrooms.

The post-millennial generation will see online collaboration become the norm across all information industries. Workplace confidentiality and external communication will be redefined as the flow of information picks up pace between organizations.

While it might seem disadvantageous for organizations to share industry secrets, the simple truth is that collaboration through online networks will also allow for the rapid gain of new information. Secondly, information leaks will become more common as security compromises become more frequent. Privacy and protection of trade secrets is already eroding and there is a school of thinking that believes internet security will no longer exist based on the uneven progress of security tools and hacking.

The future generation will be highly connected and hiring should be based on their ability to communicate in newly formed online communities. The organization that thrives will empower their employees in their ability to access these networks. Furthermore, this is the place where post-millennials will build their resume.

The current one or two page resume and cover letter will be replaced by their presence and accomplishments in these digital networks. It is also here where reaching out to the best will be possible. The traditional method of creating job posts will only bring lackluster results. Additional methods need to be used in place of resumes. Behavioral assessments and analyzing the online footprints of candidates will produce the most successful results.

Work environment changes

The baby boomer generation spent countless hours in the office. The millennials preferred work-life balance with flexible hours traded in for completing work tasks outside office hours. The post millennial generation will be even more detached from the office.

Communication is about to undergo a radical change. Meetings in conference rooms are being replaced by workplace chat systems and social networks. It is becoming even easier for employees to work outside the office. There is a movement amongst startups that emphasize a distributed team. Buffer is a famous example of how a company is running business with team members distributed across the globe without the need for a costly office.

With improvements in communication technology it makes sense to ditch the overhead of office space in favor of work-at-home schemes. It’s a win-win for all. Of course, there are a lot of disadvantages currently. Legal implications and global financial networks are not ready to allow for distributed teams to have efficient operations. However, current trends are chipping away at the current infrastructure, making it possible for small organizations to run on a global scale.

The future office as we know it will be disappear. City centers full of big offices will scale down giving way to rapid developments in virtual technology nodes which will make a multinational enterprises run in more cities across the globe. Decentralization will occur as it becomes more economical.

The post-millennial worker will also need a shift in behavior to allow for this system to thrive. Self-management and accountability become key for the new generation. Also, management will focus more on strategy and less on task assignments. Software in use by developers, such as JIRA, allows for performance monitoring to be simple, task assignments to be quick, and informational resources easily accessible freeing up managers to spend more time focusing on business goals. The added transparency in communication and project management software also allows for employees to have better comprehension of tasks and their responsibilities.

For HR, the interview will become more virtual as well. Face-to-face meetings will no longer be the standard. Video chat might seem the obvious choice for conducting interviews across locations, but a suite of software will also be used in conjunction with telecommunication software to enhance the analysis of job candidates. More important than ever is the ability to understand the behavioral characteristics of job seekers. In addition to behavior are the forces that drive them to action.

Retaining talent increasing productivity will depend on creating an online work environment that will satisfy the driving forces and behaviors of the distributed employee. It is an exciting future for the next generation of employees as they will be enabled to work in a free environment. Traditional employers may fret at this thought but the benefits outweigh the fears and future infrastructure will make it all possible.

Legal framework improvement

The future of a distributed, connected team brings new legal challenges for HR. A balance needs to be struck with confidentiality and open communication. Processed based systems that surround employees with red tape inhibits their effectiveness to collaborate. Protocols in an organization will need to shift to allow employees to understand the strategic initiatives of an organization and empower them with the ability to work independently so that they can collaborate and no leak information that could reveal secrets. A lot of headaches can be prevented by hiring the right people in the first place. Job benchmarking is a great way for understanding what behaviors are necessary for employees to strike the right balance between open communication and safeguarding secrets.

Another hurdle for organizations hiring abroad is with payroll, taxes, and other legacy systems that are still in place. Luckily, there are new companies that tackle hiring people abroad by not actually hiring them in the first place. Independent contracting is on the rise. There are many flavors on independent contracting. Some versions are seen as low cost alternatives to employment. However, the future will see the rise of favorable forms of independent contracting for workers. Results-based work will be a pseudo-form of salaried employment. A host of benefits programs will also arise to assist the independent contractor.

Payroll is also becoming increasingly easy with global remittance services. Instant cash transfers are the future of bank. Current systems in the US are painfully embarrassing. Paper-based checks, fee-ridden bank-to-bank wire transfers, and other schemes won’t compete in a global economy. Also, fluctuations in global exchange rates makes it complicated for a business to operate. It can become a blessing or a headache. Global-based currencies such as bitcoin was once the hope for many for a new standard, but, unfortunately, it hasn’t been proven yet. Fortunately, a considerable amount of organizations are working actively to make innovations in global currencies and exchanges which will make worldwide payroll much simpler.

Death and taxes are a sure thing. Governments will not look favorably on missing out on employment taxes. As independent contractors replace employees, the role of the employment taxes become seemingly less profitable. Regardless, the government is efficient in its revenue-generating abilities. Global cooperation will become imperative for the future workforce.

CFOs might feel the discomfort of uncertainty, but it is temporary. The future workforce and organization will enjoy simpler tax filing on global operations as it becomes more common. The post-millennial generation will become a global workforce

Succeeding in hiring

The post-millennial worker will be a different breed. The organization that wants to have top talent will realize that drastic changes will need to take place. Smaller companies will lead the way and make innovations with operations. The new hiring processes will follow these innovators. In order for existing organizations to succeed, they must be sensitive to the trials and successes of other companies hiring procedures.

Maintaining the status quo will ensure the demise of a business as talent moves towards more favorable working environments. Invest in your workforce first to make sure that talent is retained.

Additionally, it will be necessary to revamp the interview process. Candidates will no longer be judged by a sheet of paper, but by an embodiment of work that is accessible online. The work speaks for itself and post-millennials will self-brand.

Finally, regulations change all the time. Investing a lot of resources based on the current legal environment could jeopardize future operations. Anticipating the changing legal framework is a tricky process, but there is opportunity.