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Millennials are rapidly becoming the driving force in many of our workplaces. The trend is set to continue for at least the next ten years until the younger generations enter the job market and previous generations go into retirement.
Until then, market leaders have to find ways to motivate and engage a millennial workforce to give the best results and showcase optimum productivity.
The millennials have changed the job market a lot, which means that managers have to rethink how they interact with their employees. This new generation of workers expect greater flexibility and remote working options and want to work in a job in which they feel empowered.
According to a survey conducted by Udemy, 30% of millennials feel that ‘Meaningful work’ is the most important criterion they pursue at the workplace-Generation Insights. The same survey says that millennials aged 21 to 24 are likely to be bored nearly twice (38%) than baby boomers (22%).
Tip to engage millennials at work
There will be huge productivity loss when millennial employees get disengaged.
The need of the hour is – Engage the millennial employees with the work that infuses passion in their minds. The lack of constant engagement is one of the many reasons why millennial employees are getting bored at work.
This is the first and foremost thing that needs to be understood and fixed. Motivating this valuable workforce will make all the difference to your company, but it isn’t always easy to get it right. That’s where this article comes in. Here are just a few of the most effective ways to motivate your millennial employees.
Young talent is great to work with but hard to recruit and retain. If you try following these steps, you’ll be off to a good start when retaining your most valuable staff members.
1. Provide encouragement, guidance, and feedback
Millennial employees are more likely to stay loyal to jobs with development opportunities. The best way to enable it is to provide ongoing mentorship, guidance, and feedback. It’s a win/win situation because providing this feedback helps them get better – and ultimately add more value to your company.
[Tired of using the old methods to engage employees? Check out our guide on Employee Engagement to motivate and engage your millennials at work.]
2. Give them the tools they need-
You wouldn’t ask a lumberjack to cut down trees without an axe or a chainsaw, and yet we expect employees to make miracles happen without the tools they require. That’s why you shouldn’t be afraid to approve budget requests and allow people to use tools- if these can help them do their jobs to the best of their ability.
3. Promote them internally-
As part of their determination to grow, millennials like to receive promotions and even help shape their departments. That’s why it’s a good idea to promote internally where possible and even create new job roles and titles with specific employees in mind.
Millennials won’t wait around if they see no opportunities for progression, and you’ll quickly find yourself hemorrhaging talent to your competitors.
4. Improve the work environment
Improving the working environment is a sure-fire way to increase employee retention and encourage your millennial employees to stick around. You can improve the work environment by increasing pay scales, promoting from within, helping them achieve a work/life balance, providing competitive benefits, encouraging friendly employee relationships, and trusting your employees with responsibility.
5. Offer flexibility
One study found that a good work/life balance is the number one priority for millennials. On top of this, they also appreciate that the stereotypical 9-5 no longer exists. They’re willing to work overtime and weekends, but only if you offer the same flexibility when it comes to holidays, afternoons off, and more.
6. Give out rewards
Rewarding millennial employees when they’ve done a good job helps to encourage them to be enthusiastic about their work. It can even help to cre a spirit of friendly competition between different departments and help to increase overall job satisfaction. Use tools like enterprise to make the process of rewarding very smooth.
7. Let them have a side-hustle
Many companies are still using generic terms and conditions that prevent employees from working on a side-hustle. However, that’s starting to change as companies like Google, Atlassian, LinkedIn, and Apple give employees freer reign to work on passion projects.
It’s understandable because you don’t want your employees to go freelance and to take your clients with them, but at the same time, it’s important to support people and to help them to grow. After all, as a general rule, the most talented copywriters, designers, and filmmakers are working on novels, art, and movies in their own time.
The least your company can do is offer support where possible to help foster their long-term career.
8. Ask for feedback
Millennials won’t hesitate to tell you if they think that something is wrong, so be sure to listen to the gossip around the water cooler and go out of your way to ask people what they think. Don’t just save it for annual reviews. Instead, make it an ongoing thing and a part of your company’s culture. Then, once you’ve received feedback, take action.
9. Be transparent
Transparency has been a big buzzword over the last few years thanks to the rise of social networking, making it almost impossible for companies to lie or bend the truth without someone calling them out. Millennials are the first generation to grow up alongside social networking. They expect the same transparency, authenticity, and trust from the companies they work for as they do from the companies they buy from.
10. Recognize long service
Surveys show that a third of new hires quit their jobs within six months of starting. That’s why you should go out of your way to recognize those employees who stick around for the long haul. This signals to other employees that you value their contributions to the company and can help encourage your millennials to stay with you for longer.
11. Provide them more learning opportunities
Updating one's skills is not just the order but the need of the day. The reason is changing quite often and throwing multiple challenges to millennial employees. If they don’t update their skills, they will become obsolete and remain unwanted in the companies. To make them not become obsolete, provide them with enough learning opportunities.
There is a paradigm shift in how people learn skills these days. Anything can be learned at any time and place with the availability of new-age training platforms such as Udemy and Coursera etc.
In the end, be considerate, listen to them, and make them feel like vital cogs of the organization.
If you want your employees to be motivated and dedicated to what they’re doing, you need to learn everything you can about their background, their goals in life, and the demands they have, both as individuals and as a generation. You can only leverage what you know to create a motivated and productive office environment. We hope that the tips in this article help out.
Good luck!
