Millennial and psychological contract: Social constructivist approach

Abstract

The psychological contract as a manifestation of employment relationship needs to touch the motivational aspect of employees in line with the increasingly intense competition in recruiting and maintaining the talented worker, especially the millenial generation that currently occupies the largest portion of the workforce. Work characteristics and values of the millennial generation affect the dynamics of psychological contract management that has become more focused on flexibility and employability skill development. Millenial workers-motivated to develop professional competence-tend to like collaborative work environments. Based on the social constructivist paradigm, organizations can facilitate learning process of millennial workers through social interaction. The process of sharing knowledge becomes the focus of millenial workers in order to improve decision-making ability, problem solving and communication building. The social constructivist approach becomes relevant in managing psychological contracts in the context of millennial workers, especially in encouraging their participation and contribution as a form of self-esteem fulfillment and self-actualization. This chapter presents practical implications of millenial worker collective activity in developing millennial worker knowledge, especially related to the organizational efforts in building learning culture. In addition, human resource practitioners are expected to be able to gain a valuable guidance in devising strategies to maintain millenial workers by focusing on building professional and social competence. There are also mentoring guidelines for career development based on millenial worker characteristics.