3 Ways Your Company Can Integrate Multiple Generations and Engage Millennials
This helpful article comes from Entrepreneur.
3 Ways Your Company Can Integrate Multiple Generations and Engage Millennials
Creating harmony among generations and successfully integrating millennials into the workforce is the key to maintaining and boosting productivity across sectors, but how do you do it?
1. Accept the move towards work-life balance.
Attracting and retaining talent depends on the acceptance of a modernized work environment and altered management styles. Currently, the average age of a typical CEO is 50 — that’s 15 years younger than me. My generation deeply respects the chain of command and is fiercely loyal to our employers.
To us, work-life balance is skewed heavily towards long hours in the office. Gen Xers believe promotions are rooted in the concept of time put in and respect the typical 9-to-5 workday.
Millennials do not have patience with hierarchical promotion policies. They resign nearly twice as often as older generations, and typically because a promotion isn’t coming quick enough.
Second to pay, digital natives greatly value work-life balance. They are of the mentality that work is a space, not a place.
In a recent Deloitte study, 88 percent of millennials desired a greater opportunity to dictate their work hours, and 75 percent wanted the flexibility to work from home or other locations where they feel comfortable and productive. As Generation Y floods the labor force, older leadership needs to adjust to their priorities.
2. Scratch micromanagement.
Upward mobility is among the top career priorities for younger generations. A stifling work environment is detrimental to integrating and retaining new talent. Give them ample responsibility and freedom. That includes creating an environment that values autonomy and has a clear path for upward trajectory.
That last point is especially important. Creating “rewards” for millennials is key. Boomers don’t need affirmation or a defined way forward. Millennials do. Show them there’s a way upward.
My organization works closely with corporate partners to provide potential employees — veterans in particular — a one-to-two year plan detailing how they can advance within the company.
3. Step up and transfer knowledge.
It is high-time older generations step into mentor roles. Leaving emerging generations high and dry when it comes to understanding the ins and outs of a company is disastrous. As they prepare to exit the workforce, individuals who have put 30-plus years into companies have invaluable knowledge to pass on to digital natives.
In 2017, the U.S. entered a top-heavy age distribution and retiree surge. According to recent census figures, there are 25 Americans 65 and older for every 100 people in their working years, meaning Gen X employees are taking the helms of companies and millennials are cascading into now vacant managerial roles with very little guidance.
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