How The Now-Gen Builds Culture That Resonates With Your Nex-Gen Talent - The Millennials

Millennials are the first generation that are digital natives. So what does that mean? Well, we don't know another way. There are two things you need to know about how they view the workplace. First, a lot of the rules about engagement were established long before the invention of email and electronic communication. Number two, Millennials overwhelmingly believe that businesses need a reset in terms of paying as much attention to people and purpose as it does to product and profit.

75% of millennials believe businesses are too fixated on their own agendas. And not focused enough on improving society.

These findings should be viewed as a valuable alarm to the business community, particularly in developed markets. We need to change the way they engage Millennial talent or we risk being left behind. these two factors, technology and a different belief system are both affecting the way younger people experience work.

For years, employers have been aware of employee engagement and retention issues in their workplaces. These organizations have engagement policies that typically address engagement for the organization under one policy, without any differentiation for the generations of employees. As the millennial generation grows in the workforce and baby boomers retire, managers and human resources professionals will need to develop new engagement models to embrace the generational differences between baby boomers and millennials.

Baby boomers are currently the largest generation of active workers. Research has shown that boomers identify their strengths as organizational memory, optimism, and their willingness to work long hours.

This generation grew up in organizations with large corporate hierarchies, rather than flat management structures and teamwork-based job roles.

Millennials have a drastically different outlook on what they expect from their employment experience. Millennials are well educated, skilled in technology, very self-confident, able to multi-task, and have plenty of energy. They have high expectations for themselves, and prefer to work in teams, rather than as individuals. Millennials seek challenges, yet work-life balance is of utmost importance to them. They do, however, realize that their need for social interaction, immediate results in their work, and desire for speedy advancement may be seen as weaknesses by older colleagues.

As Leigh Buchanon writes in Meet the Millennials, “One of the characteristics of millennials, besides the fact that they are masters of digital communication, is that they are primed to do well by doing good. Almost 70 percent say that giving back and being civically engaged are their highest priorities.”

Employer Reputation As A Strength

Employer reputation is the most frequent engagement threat. This suggests that highly engaged employees are proud of the organizations they work for. When perceptions of employer reputations decrease, a similar decrease in engagement spreads throughout the workforce.

Engaged employees are emotionally attached to their organizations, and when employer reputation changes, so do relationships of employees with employers.

Creating engagement strategies is one of management’s big goals. But leaders who have developed successful strategies for retaining boomers are going to have put those strategies in the corporate archives. Creating strategies to engage millennials requires a whole different approach and strategy.