Conventional wisdom holds that millennials are entitled, easily distracted, impatient, self-absorbed, lazy, and unlikely to stay in any job for long. Furthermore, they want free food, they want unlimited vacation, they want to run the company two days after they arrive. But, on the positive side, they’re also looking for purpose, feedback, and last but not least personal life balance in their work/life balance. Companies of all kinds are struggling to understand this new breed of employees.
Hold on…let’s talk, for once, about the positive attitudes:
- Millennials want to sacrifice salary for a better work environment: 25- to 35-year-olds said they’d be willing to give up an average of $7,600 in salary for things like career development, and a healthier work/life balance etc..
- Millennials want to work for the greater good: 73% of millennials seek meaningful work at organizations with a mission they support. In fact, a remarkable 90% say they want to use their skills for doing good, suggesting that millennials seek workplaces with a culture of altruism that enables them to give back to society. Millennials also care about the company culture. For 77% this is just as or even more important than salary and benefits.
- Millennials want to be entrepreneurial: they want the flexibility and freedom, where possible, to be their own boss, which will lead to greater employee engagement, loyalty and ultimately better business results.
- Millennials want to be coached: they crave for and respond well to a good, positive coach. Overall, they want feedback 50% more often than other employees. Their number one source for personal development is their manager, but only 46% thinks that (s)he meets their expectations in terms of feedback.
- Millennials want to design their own career paths. An essential component of their employee engagement is letting them have a voice in how their careers are structured. The one-size-fits-all approach to building careers simply doesn’t work for their ambitions. They desire amazing, personalized experiences and a chance to prove their abilities and quickly rise through the ranks. Unlike traditional career paths, which tend to be more linear, millennials are forging nonlinear and unique career paths that are aligned with their personal sense of purpose.
Are millennials getting what they want out of work and life?
Leaders are increasingly forced to pay attention to the millennial generation whose attitudes and preferences may profoundly reshape workplaces and society. Like previous generations, millennials strive for a life well-lived. They want good jobs and they also want to feel engaged. In addition to finding engaging jobs, millennials want to have high levels of well-being. They want a purposeful life, be part of an active community and have strong social ties.
Looking at all of this, the question is: are millennials getting what they want out of work and life? Not so much. Gallup’s latest report, finds that millennials struggle to find those engaging jobs. Millennials have the highest rates of unemployment and underemployment. Only 29% of those who are employed feel engaged at work.
The corporate environment is not ready to deal with this generation
Their overall well-being nearly matches that of gen Xers and baby boomers, meaning millennials have not been able to forge better paths for themselves. This is because corporate environment are simply not ready to deal with this generation. Millennials lack certain social skills needed to build and mantain fruitful relationships with supervisors, peers and team members. They grew up and live in a digital world where interacting with people often happens online. Building trust however, one of the key elements in a good working reletionship, isn’t easy to achieve online. To do this, you need face-to-face connections, at least once in a while.
How to make face to face interactions foster good working relationships?
Big corporate events aren’t very helpful or effective in making people interact. When you put 200 people in the same room they tend to mingle with the people they already know. If you organise 50 small events of 4 people each, they have no choice than to talk to one another. Organising 50 small events vould take an admin or PA person a lot of weeks. Any company would refrain from investing so much time in setting up so many small events and keep track of accepted and rejected invitations, let alone following up on whether the events actually took place or what the attendees’ feedback would be. It would be an organisational nightmare.
Unless you use a cost-cutting tool like Woobe which allows a company to invite individuals based on their profiles (age, gender, function title, seniority, department, etc.) and their availability. In just 3 clicks, and in less than 5 minutes, you’d set up hundred of micro-events and would have access to a dashboard which keeps track of how these events unfold. Watch how simple it is in this video:
https://youtu.be/Lm1VFpBLo9I
This article has been taken from the original publication from Woobe Blogs
