Leadership’s Future: To Hire and Hold (Millennials)
by Miki Saxon
Who do kids follow?
For the last several decades study after study have shown that kids pay more attention to the opinions of their peers than their parents.
More and more they take information and process it on their own.
Sure, their opinions are colored by the MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) of those who raised them, but not necessarily to copy them—sometimes they take the exact opposite position.
When it comes to working there is a belief that Millennials are different from all previous generations.
It’s not so much that what they want in their workplace is different from Boomers and Gen X; it’s that Millennials are more articulate in explaining it, more demanding in receiving it and faster to move if they don’t get it.
Last year I coined a new term, aMillennial, referring to someone who was chronologically of that generation, but without the entitled mentality—it’s the entitlement that irks most people.
In a recent survey new grads talked about staying in their company for 8.9 years, but HR assumes they will leave.
Razor Suleman, the 35-year-old CEO and founder of I Love Rewards, notes that U.S. Department of Labor statistics say most millennials will have 10 jobs by the time they’re 38.
“HR managers turn that around and say. . . . ‘That’s what they’re like,’ ” as if the employees only planned to stay for that long, said Suleman. “They don’t sort of turn it around and say, ‘Hey, wait a second, they wanted to stay 8.9 years and I missed seven years of retention.’ “
Most people look for a job, but hope to find a home.
Think about what you want in your home—great siblings who are interested and willing to help you succeed; great parents who understand that you need to make mistakes to learn and grow, who openly share their knowledge, but don’t expect you to be a carbon copy; who offer ways to stretch yourself with challenging tasks that contribute to the family’s success; a warm, safe physical environment—fancy or not; a fair allowance.
Translated in to workplace terms that’s what all generations want; aMillennials are just more willing to leave home to find it.
“Because if I was in a job that I was paid well, I loved what I was doing, I was empowered to make decisions, I was advancing, why wouldn’t I stay at a company?” — Rob Bianchin, college senior
Image credit: shirleybnz on sxc.hu
April 4th, 2010 at 8:04 am
[…] Saxon at MAPping Company Success explains in her post, Leadership’s Future: To Hire and Hold (Millennials), that if you want a happy workforce, you need to provide the same things that make for a happy […]