Yelp's Employee Scandal: Why Companies Need To Offer Career Coaching As A Wellness Benefit

If you haven't seen it yet, Yelp's CEO is in the middle of a PR situation. A disgruntled employee wrote him an open letter on the popular blogging platform, Medium, outlining why terrible wages and the high cost of living in San Francisco was leaving her starving, stressed, and ruining her childhood dreams.

The young woman is receiving a lot of criticism for doing this, including a scathing rebuttle from a fellow Millennial worker who has dealt with the same adversity in a much different way. 

However, the real lesson business leaders can learn here is the entire thing could have been avoided if Yelp was offering its young staff private career coaching.

A College Degree Doesn't Provide Professional Maturity

Millennials make up 50% of the workforce today. That number will jump to 75% in the next 10-15 years. While well-educated, studies show they are lacking the professional skills employers are looking for. Less than 30% of them have ever done internships or been in professional settings before. Which means, those first few jobs out of college come with steep learning curves, both professionally and personally. Having an objective person to talk through the challenges helps Millennials move through the learning curves faster and more effectively. 

Gallup Study Reveals Disturbing Millennial Trend...

Gallup researched Millennial college grads who were extremely happy and engaged in their early careers, resulting in a higher level of success compared to their peers. The study showed those who thrived had had six major emotional and experiential opportunities prior to starting their careers. These included:

1. Professors who made you excited about learning.
2. Professors who cared about you as a person.
3. A mentor who sat and thought about your future with you.
4. Extremely involved in extracurricular activities.
5. Had a project that took more than a semester or more to complete.
6. Had an internship or job where the student could apply what they were learning in the classroom.

Shockingly, a mere 3% of Millennial  college grads have experienced all six. In other words, 97% of the Millennial workforce hasn't had the critical experiences needed to improve their chances of professional success and satisfaction. Leaving employers to either help them close the gap, or deal with the consequences.

Millennials Want (And Need) Private Coaching To 'Save Face'

Some companies think teaching their managers to be better at coaching will solve the problem. It won't. Managers are not coaches. An employee reports to the manager. No matter how good a manager might be at training or motivating an employee, they can never be fully objective to the needs of the employee's development. That's why private coaching must be offered. It's the only way the employee can work through the challenges without being judged by the manager. This is particularly important to Millennial workers who hate letting people down. Raised on praise and rewards, one of the hardest things for them to deal with in the workplace is failure and disappointment. Thus, they will often avoid conversations with managers because they are afraid of conflict. Having an unbiased third-party to get assistance from lets Millennials quickly get the right kind of coaching to work through issues and stay engaged in the job.

Millennials Assume Private Coaching Will Be Provided

Millennials don't just want their own career coach, they expect it. Why? They're the first generation to be coached their entire lives. From organized sports to music lessons, Millennials learned early on that coaching isn't a sign of weakness, but a path to greatness.

For Yelp and other large companies hiring massive amounts of Millennials, I strongly encourage you to at least explore affordable virtual career health and wellness platforms for your staff as a benefit option. The ROI on the investment will come in reduced turnover, higher productivity, greater job satisfaction, and definitely less PR disasters.