Businesses are being urged to embrace analytics capability to ensure personalised career path development and compensation packages as a way to retain millennial talent in the age of digital transformation.
Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) will replace less-skilled labour, compelling blue-collar workers to upskill and do more sophisticated work, say human capital experts.
Those surviving the transition will include engineers, surveyors, salespeople, craftsmen, accountants, architects, dentists, doctors, nurses and anyone in human-touch-based employment.
"By 2025, millennial workers will account for 50% of the total, compared with 40% of today's 40 million workers [aged 15-60] in the market," said Siriyupa Roongrengsuke, deputy director of academic affairs of Sasin School of Management.
Ms Siriyupa said two-thirds of millennial workers will leave firms within 2-5 years, 20% resign within one or two years and 19% within six months.
"Millennial workers need technological tools for collaborative work any time, anywhere, so the human resource department needs to do personalisation on salary and compensation," she said.
No more day-to-day work for HR departments, which will have to plan the career path development of talented millennials. Data analytics is a must.
For instance, a woman with young children might be happy to work 2-3 days a week at specific hours rather than the normal working time.
Employers should focus not only on customer personalisation, but employee personalisation too, as happy employees will lead to happy customers.
Businesses need to build their brands, culture and environment to attract millennials.
"This is the era of the gig economy, and millennials would like to become startups rather than being full-time employees, so it's a challenge for HR," Ms Siriyupa said.
Workers will have to re-skill in fields related to digital transformation, such as science, technology, engineering and maths, as well as social media, mobile and analytics.
Automation and AI will replace some repetitive tasks performed by blue-collar workers.
Job-cutting plans already under way in the banking and telecom sectors signal a trend, and retail is soon to follow because customers now enjoy self-service through digital channels.
"Those [laid-off] workers may have unfit skill sets for future organisations, and more importantly it's the education system that is incapable of harmonising with the country's economic development, as it found that 16% of graduates are still unemployed," Ms Siriyupa said.
Education needs to work with the private sector to build courses that match industry trends and focus more on vocational education.
"Thais are among the world's top 10 social media users, but we still lack a learning culture," Ms Siriyupa said, adding that businesses should design short courses as self-learning tools for workers.
Vilaiporn Taweelappontong, consulting lead partner of PwC Thailand, said the role of HR has changed from back-office support to front-end management, helping carry out the strategies of the business.
The agility to shift to new skills, the capacity for experimentation and fast execution, and the willingness to take risks and accept failure are all keys to the digital transformation, she said.
"Globally, 70% of the total cost of each firm goes to human cost," said David Hope, president for Asia-Pacific of Workday, a cloud-based human resources and financial management firm.
"Having proper human capital management will help save cost and increase productivity," he said.
Workday established a local office in Thailand to tap demand for cloud-based services enabling recruitment and retention of talent.
The digital transformation and Thailand 4.0 initiative will force employers to shift to digital capability and be more innovative and competitive, all requiring talented digital workers.
According to research firm Gartner, human capital management in Asia-Pacific excluding Japan was valued at US$2 billion last year.
