How To Retain Your Millennials

Kids today! Each generation struggles to understand why their successors are so different (and usually, by definition, “useless”). The Millennial cohort are those born between 1982 and 2000. This is a key group, especially in Japan, because they are not making enough of them any more.

 Over the last 20 years, the population of 15-24 years olds has halved.  Recruiting and retaining young staff has become a big pain for all of us. The war for talent means we have to learn quickly how to understand them and what they want. To those firms who just don’t get it, a big Arigatoo! Please keep training your Millennials so we can poach them.

 Dale Carnegie and MSWOARS have been doing major research on engaging employees and recently focused specifically on Millennials. The overall results show that 30% of Millennials are fully engaged, another 56% are partially engaged and 14% are disengaged. So what? Well, engaged staff are more likely to stay and so let’s dig down into what Millennials want.

 The study threw up three areas where we need to focus. Their personal life, the work environment and attitudes to organization leadership. These are big topics, so today we will focus on the “me” factor. The survey showed that in their personal life, Millennials wanted a good work/life balance. In particular, having flexible hours, so they can pursue personal responsibilities, ranked highest.

 This sounds fairly mundane and flexi-time has been a feature of many western work environments for a long time. However, when companies emerge from major incidents like the Lehman Shock or the 3/11 triple whammy of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear core meltdown, flexibility sometimes goes missing, as the screws get tightened. For example, the huge corporate cash reserves in Japan today are a direct response to bankers previously demanding loans be paid early and to the sudden disruption of business through natural disasters. A “hands on the table, no rapid movements” conservative mentality reigns at the moment.

 In Japan, one in six of workers never take any annual leave and of those working over 60 hours a week, over one quarter take no holidays. Not a lot of work/life balance going on there. Japanese staff are generally apologetic about asking for leave. Yes, this is cultural and that is why the majority of Japanese staff finish the year with excess leave days. This means the workplace culture is one where work, work, work is good and seeking flexibility about work hours is stepping out from the norm. Not a trait much welcomed here.

 In Japan, 92% of workers start after 8.00am (compared to Germany at 47%), explaining why your train is so packed everyday. Not a lot of flexibility there either. Wanting to start early and finish early is a struggle in a late start/late finish work culture. The pressure to stay at your desk until the seniors leave is strong and the idea of leaving before your boss, would be a novel one here in Japan. So, how flexible is it down at your shop? Would your Millennials be met with frowns if they took off at 5.30pm every night?

 Millennials want their immediate supervisor to care about their personal life and the effects it has on their job. For Boomers this is sheer gobbledegook. There has always been a clear separation of private and work life for this generation. How much do your supervisors actually know or care about the private lives of your Millennial staff? This requires a substantial mind shift toward a more holistic approach to dealing with the younger generation. It may feel it is a bit like prying into their private lives, but they don’t see it that way, if the intention is to be 360 degree supportive.

 Millennials are in short supply, so we better get clued in fast on how to engage and retain them. This is a zero sum game we don’t want to lose.

Being recognized by their immediate supervisor was important to Millennials. This sounds simple, but in the real world how many supervisors give meaningful positive feedback to their staff? Being told “good job” is basically useless, unless what we did is actually specified. In Japan, the older generation of leaders do not have a habit of handing out anything other than “tough love”. Are your middle managers recognizing the work of your Millennials – if not it might be a good time to do some more leadership training in this area.  They are highly unlikely to get religion by themselves on how to treat Millennials and how to retain them.

 Millennials are also looking for support and help in their work. The amount of free time bosses have is limited and though honoured in principle, in practice not a lot of active coaching takes place. By the way,giving orders doesn't count as coaching.  Add up all the minutes in a week you actually spend coaching your team and the total will be scary.  

Co-workers are also busy people too, so they are limited in how much time they can invest in teaching Millennials anything.  Looking for leverage opportunities, are bosses coaching the co-workers on why it is important to help the Millennials, and are these activities being noted when it comes to performance review time? If they are not, then everyone moves along briskly, because there is a lot to do, and Millennials can be left to their own devices to work it out for themselves. This is not going to increase their engagement and they may just decide to leave for greener pastures.

 Millennials like to be trusted that they can do their job and to be given greater responsibility. They know this is how they grow in their careers. Bosses who can’t delegate are blockers of Millennial progress. The “it will be quicker if I do it myself” mantra ensures not much gets delegated. The learning opportunity is denied and the bosses work burden is constantly at bursting point. This means no coaching time being invested as well, so it becomes a vicious circle of neglect.

 The Millennial view of the organisation’s leadership can be a critical factor in keeping them. Having confidence in the leadership ability of one’s immediate supervisor is ranked high in importance in the survey. This can be a bit of a problem though, because often people are promoted into positions of leadership, but are not given any training for the new role.

Being a good practioner and being a good leader of others is not the same thing. The elements that made you great may be missing in the team under your care. The ability to organize yourself is different to organising a team and areas like communication become a challenge for a lot of new leaders. The upshot may be that the Millennials quickly realize their boss is a hopeless leader, absent coach, poor communicator and totally stressed out by the burden of responsibility, because they can’t delegate.  Not a great role model for encouraging the yonger generation to step up into positions of responsibility.

Millennials like to have input into decisions that impact their work, but if the boss is a “my way or the highway” type, then there is not a lot of scope for input. In very hierarchical structures like Japan, the old have value and the young are there to be tolerated until they get a clue.  The classic top down approach is not one to build the Millennial’s sense of worth by valuing their opinion.  

 Millennials expect their boss to communicate openly and honestly. One of the issues with middle management is they are like sponges in absorbing information that drifts down from on high, but they are parsimonious in passing it down any further. The consequence is that they know what is going on, but few others in their team have a clue and are unpleasantly surprised by the turn of events in the company. When this happens, the trust is quickly broken.

Millennials demand good leaders. So like the canary in the mine, these young people may be giving us a good warning of hidden leadership failings in our midst. If we don’t take note and take the required action, they may not wait around for us to fix it. Having to continually replace them will be costly and painful in the long term.

This a zero sum game we have to win and it starts with educating ourselves on how to attract and retain the next generations in a sellers market for job applicants.

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