Hiring and Training the Millennial Employee

What attracts the Millennial colleague? How do we keep them engaged during the hiring process? How do we on-board them to ensure they assimilate quickly within our organizations. What's important to them to feel part of our team as quickly as possible? How do we keep them for the long term?

Millennials will make up 50% of our workforce within the next several years. Our hiring managers need to understand how to attract, develop, and retain this new talent. Methods are changing and we must change with them to attract the best of the best. To hire and retain the Millennial who has the core competencies and values that "fit" with the job, most organizations and managers must shift how they interview and engage employees. They also need to consider what strong Millennial candidates look for in an employer and what their organization has to offer. They are interviewing us just as much as we are interviewing them.

This generation looks for jobs through social media channels, among friends, by working their alumni. They network to understand the best companies to work for and word travels faster than ever before. Clearly if you have a work environment that is collaborative, creative and supportive, your current satisfied Millennials will attract their high performing friends to your company. The social media channels they employ will communicate that your company is a good place to work. (Conversely, if they are not challenged or rewarded, this news will also travel fast.)

The hiring process needs to be thorough and timely. They expect us to communicate with them differently and rapidly. It is important to engage with Millennials on the social media platforms they use in their daily lives. By creating and maintaining Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin company profiles, potential employees will easily get to know your company, its products, and services. Blogs and pages must be kept up to date and ideally managed by a colleague that understands the target audience. Millennials want to know that they are engaging with real people like them not corporate identities. Ultimately, a Millennial wants to know why they should take this job. How will it help them with their overall goals? Creating a company Linkedin page and not keeping it current will reflect negatively on your organization.

Millennials want to know they will be challenged, have a sense of purpose, a sense of community and are being sought after. Companies must sell Millennials not on just why they should join, but what their career progression will be, and most importantly how they'll make an impact on the organization. Companies also need to be seen as socially aware. This communication needs to be as rapid and immediately impactful. If you don't engage them quickly, they will move onto the next job posting with the next click.

Your interview process needs to reflect the culture you want to promote about your organization. A lengthy, process-oriented interview process will not work for the Millennial candidate. If you are a fast paced, innovative lifestyle hospitality company, you can't put candidates through an arduous, bureaucratic series of interviews. It will reflect negatively on what they can expect upon hiring. They must have a personal feel for the person that they will ultimately report to and have free access to asking questions. To assign the negotiations to a third party or if they feel disconnected from who will be their immediate leader will promote a sense of old style "top down" style management. They must have a sense of collaboration and speaking with current employees just like them will help them to get a sense of the community they would be joining.

You want savvy employees who can help your organization creatively respond to a quickly changing market, provide an outstanding guest experience and brand pride. You must show you can keep up with them and will provide a great place to work, by living your property, company and corporate values. Your recruits can become your best advocate.

Millennials have a reputation for short attention spans, leaving jobs "because they don't like it", or they didn't respect their boss. Jumping around, particularly for relatively new graduates is not unusual and should not necessarily reflect negatively on their candidacy. Taking time off to care for a relative, study and work abroad or performing charitable work can reflect positively on a prospective candidate. I no longer tell candidates that a gap in their resume is automatically a negative and leaving a job for personal reasons will reflect on their future commitment to a role.

While compensation and benefits are important to most potential employees, the Millennial wants to know more. It is important that benefits and vacation time occur as quickly as possible upon hiring. Incentive plans and bonuses must be easy to understand and be paid quickly with public recognition of a job well done.

Millennials want flexibility in their work hours. Work space is highly portable and we work off our phones, iPads and laptops at all hours. In our hospitality industry we know that our work is not just done between 9-5 Monday to Friday and we answer emails on Sunday evening. Working from home on occasion or starting late is a fair compromise. Work life balance is critical for the Millennial employee.

Millennials are highly social and are accustomed to open collaborative spaces. Shared workspaces, free snacks, game areas and relaxed dress codes are all part of the positive social atmosphere that Millennials have come to expect in the workplace. Social interaction is highly regarded by the Millennial employee, so tell prospective employees about dinners out with the team, early hours on Summer Friday's, team building outings. Tell candidates about how they will be provided with a mentor and the opportunities for training and development. All reflect positively on the work experience the candidate can expect (in addition to improving retention).

After attracting a new and amazing Millennial employee, retaining them presents a whole new set of challenges. Clearly all the promises must translate into their new work experience and it must happen quickly.

I have a Millennial friend who was recently hired out of business school by a major financial services company. She gave it barely a year and there were several reasons that caused her to leave…lack of work that kept her busy and engaged and not feeling like her input was meaningful to the bigger picture. She also didn't get immediate feedback. Millennials are used to hearing how they are doing…reward (meaningful compensation, not just a pat on the back), in this case, came six months after a major work success…too little too late. Looking for a new position, she worked Linkedin and networked with her alumni. The company she applied to put her through a rapid series of interviews with key people including potential Millennial colleagues. They were decisive and were open to a reasonable request for salary negotiation. They gave her a concrete idea of her bonus and when she would get paid out. When she started, she was immediately set up with all connectivity, introduced to her new colleagues, trusted with a company credit card, welcomed with small gifts, provided with a company mentor and given meaningful work within her first week. She did not have a lengthy on-boarding process and she was on her first business trip within her first month. Her fellow Millennials talk openly about how the positive atmosphere continues well after their first year on the job.

Millennials have a reputation for a sense of entitlement, a lack of loyalty or respect for leadership, and no work ethic. It is important to understand that these employees behave differently and these traits are not wrong, their definitions are just different. We must understand and work with them as they are our new workforce. It is critical in retaining these employees.

It is not that Millennials have no work ethic, it is just more self-centered. Millennial employees are very concerned about doing a good job at the task they have been given and doing it quickly. They are not likely to look around when finished for something else to do. As boomers we would ask for the next task to "get ahead" or make a good impression. This does not interest most Millennials. They are more concerned with having time available to add value to their life not sacrifice their time for the next big promotion. Time is not an investment for the future but more a way to improve lifestyle. Millennials are not as consumed with "face time" as we were in our early careers. They are more interested in the here and now. Having time off due to a job well done has huge appeal. Shorter term motivators that improve work/life balance are far more enticing.

Millennial employees have great respect for leaders and loyalty, but not just because someone has been put in a position of authority. Loyalty and respect must be earned. Dissatisfaction with the boss is the number one reason they quit. As baby boomers, we would have never gone to Human Resources to complain about bad leadership. The Millennial's expectations are high and unlike generations before them, they can be extremely vocal about shortcomings in their bosses.

Bosses now must guide, coach and mentor. Traditionally the successful leadership style was a top down management style. This is evolving into a collaborative approach that empowers employees and blurs the lines between leader and team members. The new collaborative leaders are taking a more open approach within their groups. Team building, group creative thought and sharing of ideas are replacing the traditional forms of corporate management. Successful leaders today are not threatened by allowing their team members to take ownership of ideas and drive results. They encourage brainstorming and see the benefit of the unique perspectives of their team members. The ideas and input of the leaders and their team members can have equal value. We must be guiding our leaders to understand this when working with their Millennial employees.

Today's growing Millennial workforce's attitudes toward work, life, loyalty, and respect are quite different from generations before them. Once understood, accommodated and worked with, your organization will be rewarded with valuable, high performing employees, decreased turnover, positive morale and quantifiable business results.

Published Hotel Business Review - Hotel Executive Online - March 2016

Hotel Executive Business Review