The opportunity to learn and grow and the opportunity for advancement are the two areas that most differentiate hiring millennials from hiring baby boomers or gen xers. Surprised? Millennials care far less for ping-pong tables and after work socials than has been represented in the media. Worried about how you are going to fill all those openings at your firm? Here are some ways to attract and keep that next generation of workers that by 2025 will make up 75% of the global workforce.
Culture Clarity
Eighty-nine percent of organizations believe their corporate values are set and clearly communicated but half of HR professionals in the trenches don’t get that feedback from candidates. Millennials rate their work culture’s importance as an 8.5 on a scale of 1 to 10. LinkedIn reported that 86% of millennials would take a pay cut to work at a company that holds the same values as their own, only 9% of baby boomers said this was important. Creative and inclusive cultures are preferred over authoritarian, rules-based firms. How well is your firm clearly communicating your culture?
Learn and Grow
A Gallup study found that 87% of millennials say professional growth and development opportunities are their top priority, and 90% say they’d like to do it with their current company. A perception that millennials are job hoppers only comes true if you don’t offer training options that allow them to advance their career. This can be in-house training, targeted conference attendance, specialty group memberships or internally working with a manager who is more a coach than a boss. These options are necessities for hiring millennials and keeping them.
Employee Recognition
An annual review in a private office is not going to satisfy most millennials. When they feel underappreciated is when they are most likely to leave. Their preferred form of recognition is peer-to-peer. Firms that have put together a social recognition platform and found a way to reward colleagues for recognizing each other’s efforts frequently have created an environment where millennials have greater job satisfaction, improved relationships, improved confidence in their own knowledge and abilities, improved collaboration, improved sense of belonging and boosted motivation and productivity. This results in happy, retained employees and more profit for the company!
Do you need help hiring millennials? Contact Smith Hanley Associates’ Market Research and Consumer Insights Executive Recruiter, Daniel Wilberschied at dwilberschied@smithhanley.com.
