Aged roughly between 18 and 33 today, the millennial generation is already playing a key role in organisations worldwide.
Set to account for 75% of the workforce by 2025, their influence across global business is growing by the decade. So how can you recruit, engage and retain millennials - the first generation of digital natives, and motivate them to have real value?
Recruiting millennials
Firstly, recruiting millennials purely focussed on financial incentivisation is not enough. This is a generation that values work-life balance, flexibility, personal fulfilment and fast-paced career progression. In order to recruit the best talent, it will be vital to demonstrate that these elements are available to them. You’ve done this, so what next?
Engaging millennials with training
Train them, train them again, train them some more. While millennials are accustomed to ubiquitous information and ‘finding things out for themselves’ - underestimate their need and desire for good training at your peril. Millennials are a generation brought up on the concept of lifelong learning, both socially and educationally. They want to continuously develop themselves on a personal and career level and companies that fail to offer these development opportunities will fail to engage the generation.
Training millennials
Traditional training methods won’t cut it though. Millennials don’t want to be spoon fed or told what to do, they need to feel valued and trained in a way that suits them. They have an insatiable need for feedback and ‘proof’ they are “doing good”. They want to understand first how the training benefits them and how it will have a positive impact on their life. Millennials consider personal and career fulfilment as one and the same so ensure any training can be rationalised by them both personally and career-wise.
Retaining millennials within your organisation
Millennials are a transient generation, happy to shift from one organisation to another if their needs are not met. Unlike the generations that have gone before them, millennials have no problem dealing with change and will move on should a better option present itself. An organisation where training and development are geared toward the millennial mindset, in bite-sized chunks and focussed on experience, will see higher retention and engagement levels amongst this generation.