Strategies for Millennials Engagement
Since a decade, employers have realized that employee engagement and retention is a big issue in their organizations. Their organizations have such polices of engagement that usually address engagement under one policy, without any up-gradation for different generations of employees. As the generation of millennials (also known as Gen-Y or people born between 1982 – 2000) grows among the corporate manpower and the older generation retires. There raises another issue, the managers and human resource departments will need to come forward with newer engagement models. They should understand the differences between baby boomers and the millennials. This article highlights such characteristics that distinguish millennials from rest of the generations and also explains the reasons employee engagement should be a priority for managers.
The Millennials
As of late, the baby boomers are the largest generation of active workers. A latest research shows that they consider their strengths as optimism, organizational memory, and their willingness to work for hours. They grew up in companies which have large corporate hierarchies, instead of flat management structures and teamwork-work roles.
On the other hand, millennials have a drastically different point of views on what to expect from their professional experience. Millennial training could be tough as they are well-educated, sound in technology, self-confident, multi-tasking, and highly energetic. They have high expectations for themselves, and prefer teamwork, instead of individual. Millennial training comes with challenges, while giving utmost importance to work life balance. They also, realize that their need for social interaction, quick results in their work, and desire for agility may be considered weakness by older colleagues.
In the new generation, millennials are the only group to emerge after the group of baby boomers. With the growth of this group significantly as a proportion of the workforce over the next couple of decades, employers may need to make huge modifications in their engagement models. However, motivation, engagement, and retention of people will never cease to be parts of managerial priorities. Also, employers will have to strategically reform their millennial training culture to cultivate and retain important millennial employees now and in the future also.
Distinguishing Facts About Millennials
Millennials are constantly creating a change in how work should be done, as they prefer more teamwork and use more technology. Leigh Buchanon writes in Meet the Millennials, “One of the characteristics of millennials, besides the fact that they are masters of digital communication, is that they are primed to do well by doing good. Almost 70 percent say that giving back and being civically engaged are matters of their highest priorities.”
A socially minded millennial comes with the desire to be creative adding more to millennial training. As millennials have grown up in an era in which information becomes available instantly through Google or Wikipedia search, answers to any complicated question can be found easily. In such conditions, millennials have grown up to be a group that wants to work on newer and tougher problems, and requires creative solutions to every problems.
The millennial employees are more interested in feedback on their performance. However, conventional half-yearly reviews are too infrequent for them. They not only want to ensure that they’re doing a good job but also, how. A Nonprofit World article published in 2008 provides readers with details on the subject of providing feedback to the millennials for better millennial training. It includes how to give them checklists, offer lots of help, reward them for their innovations and calculated risks, provide them with mentors, engage them with frequent feedback, create a team-oriented culture, much more. It says that feedback should be provided in a way that millennials find it receptive.
For millennial training, timing and frequency are not the only important factors, but the way in which feedback is framed and delivered also keeps some value.
How to Engage Millennials
Creating a good engagement strategy is a big goal of the management. But, successful strategies already created by managers for retaining boomers need to put inside the boxes. Creating a new strategy to engage millennials requires a completely different approach.
A latest research concludes there are multiple key issues around millennials and their engagement. There two main thoughts that comes to one's mind while planning for millennial engagement are:
When it comes to employee engagement, there exists a generational difference between millennials and baby boomers. As the social scenarios of the generations are different, it seemed arguable in the beginning that the ways in which employees need to become satisfied with their job and their mental and physical presence at work every day would be different. In moving forward with the results and exercising them, employers need to adopt the belief that in order to sustain extended engagement, they must understand cautiously and handle the engagement drivers and threats.
As a definition of engagement drivers (a rise in the perception of the driver enhances engagement) and engagement threats (a fall in the perception of the driver decreases engagement) are a part of the engagement equation as a whole, here is a part of the entire list of drivers and threats measured in the study:
Corporate entities these days can better engage and retain their employees only by committing to understanding engagement drivers more within their companies and recognizing the differences across generations of employees.
The Millennials
As of late, the baby boomers are the largest generation of active workers. A latest research shows that they consider their strengths as optimism, organizational memory, and their willingness to work for hours. They grew up in companies which have large corporate hierarchies, instead of flat management structures and teamwork-work roles.
On the other hand, millennials have a drastically different point of views on what to expect from their professional experience. Millennial training could be tough as they are well-educated, sound in technology, self-confident, multi-tasking, and highly energetic. They have high expectations for themselves, and prefer teamwork, instead of individual. Millennial training comes with challenges, while giving utmost importance to work life balance. They also, realize that their need for social interaction, quick results in their work, and desire for agility may be considered weakness by older colleagues.
In the new generation, millennials are the only group to emerge after the group of baby boomers. With the growth of this group significantly as a proportion of the workforce over the next couple of decades, employers may need to make huge modifications in their engagement models. However, motivation, engagement, and retention of people will never cease to be parts of managerial priorities. Also, employers will have to strategically reform their millennial training culture to cultivate and retain important millennial employees now and in the future also.
Distinguishing Facts About Millennials
Millennials are constantly creating a change in how work should be done, as they prefer more teamwork and use more technology. Leigh Buchanon writes in Meet the Millennials, “One of the characteristics of millennials, besides the fact that they are masters of digital communication, is that they are primed to do well by doing good. Almost 70 percent say that giving back and being civically engaged are matters of their highest priorities.”
A socially minded millennial comes with the desire to be creative adding more to millennial training. As millennials have grown up in an era in which information becomes available instantly through Google or Wikipedia search, answers to any complicated question can be found easily. In such conditions, millennials have grown up to be a group that wants to work on newer and tougher problems, and requires creative solutions to every problems.
The millennial employees are more interested in feedback on their performance. However, conventional half-yearly reviews are too infrequent for them. They not only want to ensure that they’re doing a good job but also, how. A Nonprofit World article published in 2008 provides readers with details on the subject of providing feedback to the millennials for better millennial training. It includes how to give them checklists, offer lots of help, reward them for their innovations and calculated risks, provide them with mentors, engage them with frequent feedback, create a team-oriented culture, much more. It says that feedback should be provided in a way that millennials find it receptive.
For millennial training, timing and frequency are not the only important factors, but the way in which feedback is framed and delivered also keeps some value.
How to Engage Millennials
Creating a good engagement strategy is a big goal of the management. But, successful strategies already created by managers for retaining boomers need to put inside the boxes. Creating a new strategy to engage millennials requires a completely different approach.
A latest research concludes there are multiple key issues around millennials and their engagement. There two main thoughts that comes to one's mind while planning for millennial engagement are:
- Are the engagement needs in case of millennials and baby boomers different? If so, are they different enough to writ unique engagement strategies for each of the upcoming generations?
- One needs to identify the engagement drivers that are appropriate for each generation.
When it comes to employee engagement, there exists a generational difference between millennials and baby boomers. As the social scenarios of the generations are different, it seemed arguable in the beginning that the ways in which employees need to become satisfied with their job and their mental and physical presence at work every day would be different. In moving forward with the results and exercising them, employers need to adopt the belief that in order to sustain extended engagement, they must understand cautiously and handle the engagement drivers and threats.
As a definition of engagement drivers (a rise in the perception of the driver enhances engagement) and engagement threats (a fall in the perception of the driver decreases engagement) are a part of the engagement equation as a whole, here is a part of the entire list of drivers and threats measured in the study:
- Career Opportunities;
- Corporate Social Responsibility;
- Employee Health and Well-being;
- Employer Reputation;
- Learning and Development;
- Managing Performance;
- Senior Leadership, and
- Work-life Balance.
Corporate entities these days can better engage and retain their employees only by committing to understanding engagement drivers more within their companies and recognizing the differences across generations of employees.
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