Dialogues with millennials significant to company’s growth

Mark Cosgrove

Senior executives are currently facing multi-generational workforce challenges in managing the needs and expectations of millennial team members.

Mark Cosgrove, director of Training at Dale Carnegie Training Hong Kong and Macau explained to the Times this week that millennial and ageing employees in workplaces present a diverse style of working attitudes.

Speaking on the sidelines of his seminar titled “Become an Inspirational Leader,” which was hosted by the France Macau Business Association (FMBA), Cosgrove remarked that current corporate leaders are required to be flexible in their leadership style.

“I think that’s a huge challenge that people are facing: what they’ve been doing all along no longer works because the world has changed,” he stressed.

“People have changed and I think that’s especially true of millennials in Hong Kong and Macau.”

Chinese millennials born between 1984 and 1996 number around 250 million, representing more than 18 percent of the population for the world’s second largest economy.

Cosgrove, a human resources expert, went on to stress the importance of executives being the type of individuals that people want to work with and work for.

Tech-savvy, civic-oriented, practical and adventurous are just a few of the many characteristics attributed to the millennial generation currently entering the labor market.

Thus, without flexibility of senior executives, Cosgrove noted, the demands of the  various generations who work for them will not be met.

He suggested that senior executives should interact with their younger team members, explaining to employees how and why particular tasks assist the goals of the firm.

“[Millennials] want to know why they’re doing the work and how it’s related to the overall mission of the company […] and that’s a challenge for older managers,” he explained.

“In the old days it was just do your work and go home. Now they have to be in a conversation about the work and that’s different,” Cosgrove continued.

He then remarked on the importance of creating a dialogue that involves listening to their ideas and suggestions with these employees.

“I think previous generations in Asia, in Hong Kong and Macau, they were quite happy to do what they’re told and move on. It was a little more one-directional than it is today,” the expert argued.

Meanwhile, during the session, the expert also discussed the tripartite of success: skill, attitude and knowledge.

Cosgrove stressed that some managers – who are knowledgeable and skilled about the job – do not acquire leadership skills.

“There’s a skill of actually leading and being a manger, which are not necessarily the same as the skills of whatever your company [needs]. The critical piece for companies to get is that leadership skills are different from job skills,” Cosgrove proposed.