Retaining Millennial Talent

Offering frequent engagement, encouragement, and development opportunities, you will attract and retain your millennial talent, and you will be moulding successful employees who will help your company be productive for many years to come.

You need to make sure your business is living up to their expectations. Gen Y employees are likely to be attracted to your organisation by promises of a positive and fun working environment that nurtures their desire to grow and succeed, but are you making good on these promises?

Here are three areas of your business where you can make good on these promises.  

Appeal to the Millennial Generation Values

They wants to work hard, but only for a company that matches their values; if  you fail to match these, they are going to get frustrated pretty quickly.

It is important to understand what your employees want, millennials value social responsibility, equality and diversity, and benefits such as flexible working and holidays; if you can demonstrate this then you will have a higher chance of keeping your younger talent happy.

Businesses have to adapt to meet the expectations of their millennial workers, they are the first generation to be digitally native and, as a result, technology is increasingly essential to attracting and retaining millennial talent. 53% say that they are more likely to take a job with a company who uses the same technology as they do; use substandard technology and you are likely be a turn-off for millennials who rely on modern tech to do their job properly. 

They also want a social work environment, they want to get to know their co-workers better so they can form stronger working bonds; it is, therefore, important to arrange social events such as charity fundraisers so they can better connect with their colleagues.

By meeting these values, not only will you be able to retain millennial employees, but you will be able to build a stronger employer brand that can be used to attract more skilled young talent in the future.

Managing Millennials Training

Millennials want rapid career progression, they don’t just want to learn their current role, they want to be prepared for the next step on the ladder.

During the recruitment process, you probably outlined what the job role was, but it is also important to outline the potential opportunities and career progression to millennials looking at climbing the ladder at your company. By communicating progression paths, opportunities, and responsibilities from day one, you can ensure that you are giving them a vision where they can progress and succeed.

They need to continuously grow and develop and are committed to personal learning and development to achieve this. You can prepare a digital training programme specific to each department or role, so employees can view training materials relevant to them whenever they require.

You can develop mentorship programmes, where new talent can learn from senior colleagues. Not only will your millennial employees learn new skills that can help prepare them for more senior roles in the future, but your senior colleagues will also get a new perspective and new ideas from fresh new talent.

With millennials wanting regular feedback from their Manager, it is also important to ensure that you are offering frequent constructive advice on how your millennial employees are performing.

As an employer, it is important to set clear expectations and goals so employees know what they are going to be evaluated on. With an engagement app, you can communicate these expectations and offer feedback on what they need to do to meet these expectations.

Additionally, if an employee is performing well, you can communicate with them to show recognition for their hard work, giving them the fulfilment that they need to be satisfied in the workplace.  

Engage Millennials in the Workplace

71% of millennials are reportedly disengaged at work; that is a lot of talented employees that are dreading coming in to work every day. Not only are these employees less enthusiastic and not as productive as they could be, but they are more likely to jump ship if another opportunity arises.

For a lot of millennials, disengagement comes about from not having enough purpose or meaning from their work. If there is no reason to work for a company, then there will be no desire to stay.

Millennials need to feel that they are working and contributing to a worthwhile cause, it is what drives them and pushes them on to succeed. If a millennial employee is working towards a shared goal, they will be more enthusiastic about coming into work and staying at your organisation.

It is therefore essential that you are transparent with millennial employees; these workers need to know what’s going on so they have a clear idea of what they are working towards. By keeping lines of communication open with an engagement app you can keep employees up to date and set out a clear vision that gives a millennial employee a sense of purpose.  

Millennials also want to have their opinions heard; if they are going to work for your company, they need to have an environment that accommodates their ideas.

By listening to their ideas and feedback through apps, you can gain an understanding of what is needed to keep your employees happy.