8th National HR Summit

MILLENNIAL MANAGEMENT : 
TALENT AND RETENTION STRATEGIES
IN THE NEW ERA

“The millennial’s,” a wistful F. Scott Fitzgerald might have written, “are different than you and me.” Managers accustomed to using certain practices to engage boomers are going to have to change their ways – and practices – if they hope to engage and retain the newest heavily scrutinized employee cohort, the millennial.

For years, employers have been aware of employee engagement and retention issues in their workplaces. These organizations have engagement policies that typically address engagement for the organization under one policy, without any differentiation for the generations of employees. As the millennial generation (also commonly known as Gen-Y and includes births from 1982 – 2000) grows in the workforce and baby boomers retire, managers and human resources professionals will need to develop new engagement models take into account the generational differences between baby boomers and millennial. As Leigh Buchanon writes in Meet the Millennial, “One of the characteristics of millennial, besides the fact that they are masters of digital communication is that they are primed to do well by doing good”. Almost 70 percent say that giving back and being civically engaged are their highest priorities.” Therefore this year we have decided to take a close watch on role of millennials in the corporate world. And how to nurture and retain this talent for the best of organization and individual.

Mr. Abhey Oswal was born in Ludhiana to Lala Vidhyasagar Oswal in the year 1949, who in his time has already built a thriving woolen and hosiery business from scratch. It would have been very easy for Mr Abhey Oswal to be part of his father’s business. But he had bigger dreams.

In his late twenties Mr. Oswal established Oswal Agro Limited in 1979 which was way apart from the industry his family was engaged into. With that itself also started his acquisition spree. Oswal Agro limited acquired ICI’s plant in Rishra, WB; Union Carbide’s unit in Mumbai and Jagatjit Industries’ sugar mill in Punjab. By the time Mr. Abhey Oswal reached Delhi 10 years later, something that started as a dream from a small-time trader became a company worth Rs. 500 crore by the end of eighties.

In the 1980s, Abhey Oswal was known as the ‘next Ambani’. He was market-savvy and had a knack of taking over businesses and building them from the ground up.

It was in the year 1990 an article in India Today described him as “trader turned tycoon” referring to his immense interests in stock market.

It was Mr. Abhey Oswal who put up the world’s largest grassroots Di-Ammonium Phosphate (DAP) plant in Paradip, Odisha.

But with the start of bull run in the market his name gradually faded away from the market. Till he rose again after the market leaders have burned their hands in the choppy market. After that Mr. Oswal started Oswal Greentech and brought another 14.2% stake in news broadcaster NDTV. Later, Oswal expanded his presence in the news media with Oswal Agro and Oswal Greentech, the two listed firms, owning 50 per cent in News Nation, a 24-hour Hindi news channel.

In January 2016, The Caravan magazine named Oswal along with Mukesh Ambani and Mahendra Nahata as businessmen who had significant interest in the news business.