CAN Framework: A guide for managing millennials now and in the future of work

By Foluso Agbaje, August 2020

Organizations are increasingly seeking to hire millennials because of the innovation and passion they bring to their jobs, however, there is also considerable difficulty in understanding how best to manage them to yield results. For this reason, millennial appears to be a buzz word in most discussions about the future of work - no people management webinar is complete if the word millennial is not mentioned at least once. For good reason too, as research suggests that many organizations today are increasingly made up of millennials with Gen Z not far behind. With that being said, it is important that business leaders are equipped with the right management styles and mindsets to lead these millennials in the present and future of work.

In my capacity as the Head of Human Resources for Jobberman Nigeria (an organization predominantly consisting of millennials), I have put together a practical framework as a guide for managing millennials in a way that should consistently yield desired results. I call this framework the CAN framework. CAN is an acronym for Care, Automate and (e)Nable.

1 Care

The first step in the effective management of millennials in the workplace is to ensure you are genuinely caring for them, by infusing empathy into your organizational culture.

If your employees do not feel cared for, you are likely to lose productivity. One traditional way to show you care as an employer is to have a well-rounded benefits package. Many small organizations worry that they will not be able to compete with bigger organizations with their benefits, however, low cost initiatives and policies like flexible working hours, ongoing informal learning and engagement plans in addition to having a robust leave policy go a long way towards showing your employees you care.

Pay attention to mental well-being

To start with, check on the mental well-being of your employees. Millenials are generally a lot more aware of mental health issues and its effects on productivity. It is important that employers are constantly keying into this. You can show you care for your employees by finding out from your medical insurance provider to see if there is a mental health hotline or facilities available for employees to reach out to if they don’t want to talk to someone within the organization. For cases of burnout, explore the option of encouraging employees to take annual leave or personal days off work. 

Another way to show you care is by creating an accessible and transparent flexible working policy. You can do this by providing opportunities for remote work to ensure that employees are sufficiently able to have a work-life balance. Regular remote working has been shown to eliminate time spent commuting to and from work, freeing up time for hobbies and other personal interests that positively correlate with taking care of mental health. The International Labour Organization (ILO) however explains that the downside of remote working is work intensification, where employees are working significantly beyond working hours and there is a subsequent detrimental effect on mental health. Evidence has also shown that employees who work remotely especially feel the need to show their supervisors that they are working hard by being available online at every given point in time. 

Communication is key

To counter the potential work intensification that sometimes results from remote working, employers need to ensure that communication within the organization is asynchronous. What this means is that employees do not feel the pressure to respond to an email as soon as it comes in, as this very often disrupts their flow of work and contributes to the feeling of being overwhelmed. To effectively lead a team with this asynchronous style of communication, it might be useful to communicate timelines in emails. So, instead of sending emails with just an open ended request, also communicate realistic expected deadlines for completion. As part of your communication efforts, provide forums that give the opportunity for employees at all levels to regularly voice their opinions and socialize as these help to mitigate feelings of depression and anxiety. An example of workplace socialization is to host team games and team building exercises like open mics and general trivia, and these can be done in person and also virtually. It is also essential that employees know who to turn to when they need to escalate a concern about their mental health or if they have any other concerns like power or data issues when working remotely. 

There are a number of digital tools such as Slack, Google hangouts, Zoom, Microsoft teams and Whatsapp that help to facilitate these informal check-ins and discussions. Sometimes a simple text message is enough to show you care. For example as a manager, checking up on team members with a phone call or text message can go a long way. 

Caring for your employees is instrumental in effectively managing millennials because employees who trust that their employer has their best interests at heart are more likely to put in their best effort at work. Employees who feel genuinely supported by their employers are engaged, motivated and flexible, and these are key attributes for an effective and high-performing workforce.

2 Automate 

According to a recent report by the McKinsey Global Institute, increasing automation in the workplace means that existing roles will be redefined with productivity gains. Automation in this sense means using your digital tools to ensure that work processes are done effectively through forward planning and execution. The same study also found that in about 60 percent of occupations, at least one-third of the activities could be automated, implying that there are substantial productivity gains when automation is done. We have already seen that working efficiently with no distractions gives employees an avenue for innovation and strategic thinking. Imagine how much more this could be if all employees automated some of the more administrative aspects of their jobs. For automation to work seamlessly, employees need to know exactly what is expected of them so that they can plan ahead accordingly.

Utilize software and tools that facilitate automation

An interesting example of automation in practise is the use of agile performance management. Agile and automated performance management helps build a culture of continuous feedback in a systematic way, while saving managers time on formal performance reviews and increasing employee engagement and productivity. If your team members have new goals it is essential that they know what those are very early on. Set automatic reminders using HRIS tools like Lattice, 15Five and Leapsome to name a few. This continuous and spontaneous feedback encourages a positive work culture, enabling employers and employees alike to celebrate and acknowledge the small and big wins in a timely manner instead of waiting for quarterly or annual performance reviews. 

Another simple and quick way to automate is to utilize your team's calendar for time blocking. This forces you to allocate time to each task in your workflow and block the time in your calendar. You will get a reminder each time a new task should begin and that takes away the burden of having to remember what you want to do next in the day, and also helps to prevent your team members workflows from being thrown off by an unexpected request.

3 eNable

This brings me to the third and final element of the framework, eNable. The focus here is to empower your employees to make the decisions that enable them to be the best version of themselves, focusing on outcomes not presenteeism at work. Enablement in this sense is a two way approach; by ensuring that leaders and employees alike are empowered to effectively do their jobs. 

Encourage decentralized leadership

A management style that could work well in managing millennials is decentralized collaborative leadership. This means that team leads and managers need to be given the autonomy to determine what management style works for them. Some teams do daily stand ups, some have weekly check ins, some do a list of activities and results every morning. This ensures that each team is being effectively managed in a style that works for them, and it also ensures that important messages are passed down quickly. As part of the promotion process and for onboarding new hires, organizations might want to train managers on being able to have an empathetic management style that encompasses the values millennials prioritize such as open and honest communication and being results driven.

Promote worker autonomy

On the employee side, we need to enable worker autonomy to ensure that they feel in control of how they spend their time. To do this, your work culture should focus on results not tasks. Employees do not need to be micromanaged to deliver results when they have the autonomy to decide how to get things done within a clearly pre-defined time frame. In a hybrid workforce model for example, employees can choose between remote work or working in the physical office based on their productivity. Again the emphasis here should be on outcomes not processes. White collar work in every labour market is predominantly a knowledge economy where workers are given the space to think and then do their work in an environment that fosters creativity. As an employer, it may also be important to ensure that your teams have received adequate support and training on how to use the tools they will be expected to operate fully in any chosen workspace. 

Upskill your workforce

Most importantly, for both team leads and employees, we have to ensure all employees are enabled with the skills they need to do their jobs. A PWC study released in April 2020 suggests that 74 percent of CEOs are worried about the availability of key skills in their workforce. Organizations need to invest in upskilling their people to keep them engaged and also to survive through unexpected events that may occur in the future.

Soft Skills have been identified as important for the future of work. Soft skills, commonly defined as non-technical skills, enable individuals to interact effectively with others. Examples of soft skills are emotional intelligence, time management, flexibility and critical thinking. Employers need to think about both the soft and technical skills critical to give their organization a competitive advantage as they grow and invest in targeted courses to achieve this. A cost effective way to upskill your workforce is to have regular knowledge sharing sessions hosted by employees themselves. For example, Jobberman organises learning sessions where a different employee informally presents insights on specialised areas and competences on a weekly basis. This helps to upskill and grow the organization at no additional cost. 

In Conclusion… 

The CAN framework suggests that to effectively manage millennials organizations could benefit from creating avenues to show that the organization genuinely cares, by automating work processes where possible, and enabling employees to bring their best selves to work everyday. Trying this framework in managing your millennials holds the potential of fostering a happier, healthier, more engaged and more productive workforce. 

You might be thinking ‘I will do all this and those millennials will still leave anyway’ and you are right, they probably will leave. The average length of time a millennial spends in one organization is two to three years. The point of this framework is to increase the likelihood that while your millennials are in your organization they are productive and engaged, and when they leave your organization they remain positive about the time they spent with you, thereby contributing to your employer brand in the labour market. 

This framework can be applicable to existing and future generations in the workforce. A change of mindset and culture within most organizations is not easy, and will require a significant paradigm shift, but it is important to note that the best organizations today and in the future of work will be those that manage their people effectively.

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