N. Raghuraman's column: Understand Gen-G, they're not as bad as you think

'May I come in', the HR person looked up from his desk and shook his head. The candidate came in, sank into the chair and sat down without trying to sit up straight. The HR person waited for a few seconds for him to take out the AirPods. When he did not do so, he asked to take out the AirPods and asked why he liked the job of cashier. He said that 'it is a part-time job and it is okay according to what I want to do in free time. I can go out with my friends, go on holidays and do other such things.' His answers, tone and body language had sent a clear message to the entire selection panel: he would not be the kind of person who would get ready and go to work on Saturday morning after hanging out on a Friday night. If his social life was interrupted, work would probably be the first thing he would give up. The next candidate was different. He impressed the panel with his appearance, seriousness and patience. Until he was sold, he waited to sit down and then sat up straight, ready to listen. He was shortlisted and given two hours to observe the young cashiers working at the Point of Sale (POS) counter. His test started from an empty counter. The bill was Rs 1272. The customer-made HR person gave him three notes of Rs 500 each. There were notes of different denominations in the cash drawer, but only up to Rs 10. There were also two coins of 1 rupee. The machine asked him to return Rs 228. He hesitated. First, he told the customer that he did not have a holiday. The customer gave him two coins of Rs 1 each and suggested that he return Rs 230. But the candidate refused and said that the machine was clearly showing Rs 228. He closed his counter and went to another counter, took the leave and returned the exact amount. The entire process took about four minutes and added five more customers to the queue. The HR team decided to send him on a week's training — not to handle cash, but to handle crowds. Both candidates were technically competent. But what separated the two was their attitude towards work. On Sunday afternoon, when I met the four promoter brothers of the company — Ashok Jain, Anil Jain, Ajit Jain and Atul Jain — at Jain Irrigation's office in Jalgaon, Maharashtra, and I told them these examples, they also believed that the way society is presenting Gen-G in a negative light, they are not really that bad. He said that Gen-G youth think differently, give importance to certain value systems and express themselves openly. Perhaps this is the reason why society makes many assumptions about them. Anil Jain said, "To handle Gen-G, we first have to develop leadership skills within ourselves. No wonder you all have heard what Bill Gates said about Future Technology last week. His record as a technology forecaster has been very good. So you should pay attention to his words. He predicted that in the coming years, job reservations will not be given to only a few castes or people with disabilities, but the entire human species may ask for these reservations, because the flood of robots and AI machines can take away our jobs — perhaps due to the carelessness of the first candidate or the mathematical understanding of the second. But there are also people like Surendra Singh Chaudhary, a 21-year-old BSc student from Biawara in Madhya Pradesh, who get job offers at their doorstep. For seven months, he single-handedly cleaned the polluted Ajnar river. Perhaps that is why there are reports of him getting job offers from the Netherlands. Have you ever wondered why we don't get committed employees like Surendra? I always interview rejected employees to understand their behaviour. They don't think they are getting paid enough to think about buying their own house. Economic instability, cost of living, and constant comparisons to others on social media discourage them from dedicating life to work as their parents did. The trick is that if you understand Gen-G's behavioural patterns, you won't reject them because of their behaviour, as I did when I offered a job to a candidate earlier.