Yesterday, we looked at who qualifies as a “Millennial” (or Gen Y) worker—and why they’re fundamentally very different people from your older employees. Today: Tips for helping Millennials adapt and thrive at work.
10 Tips for Helping Millennials Adapt and Thrive
Susan Heathfield, HR expert for About.com, offers the following suggestions:
1. Provide structure. For example, reports with monthly due dates, jobs with fairly regular hours, certain activities scheduled every day, meetings with agendas and minutes, goals that are clearly stated, and assessments of progress.
2. Provide leadership and guidance. Millennials want to look up to you, learn from you, and receive daily feedback from you. They want “in” on the whole picture and to know the scoop. They want and deserve your best investment of time in their success.
3. Encourage the Millennials’ self-assuredness, can-do attitude, and positive personal self-image. Millennials are ready to take on the world. Encourage—don’t squash them or contain them.
Hiring & Retention: A Complete Guide for California Employers—get your copy today! Learn more.
4. Take advantage of the Millennials’ comfort level with teams. Encourage them to join. They are used to working in groups and teams. Millennials gather in groups and play on teams; you can also mentor, coach, and train your Millennials as a team.
5. Listen to the Millennial employee. Your Millennial employees are used to loving parents who have scheduled their lives around the activities and events of their children. These young adults have ideas and opinions, and don’t take kindly to having their thoughts ignored.
6. Provide challenge and change. Boring is bad. Millennials seek ever-changing tasks within their work. “What’s happening next?” is their mantra. Don’t bore them, ignore them, or trivialize their contribution.
7. Expect multitasking. Millennials are multitaskers on a scale you’ve never seen before, says Heathfield. Talk on the phone while doing e-mail and answering multiple instant messages? Yes—it’s a way of life.
8. Take advantage of your Millennials’ electronic literacy. The computer, cell phone, and other media capabilities of these employees are amazing. You have a salesman in China? How’s the trip going? Old-timers call and leave a message in his hotel room, Heathfield says. Millennials text him in his meeting for an immediate response.
9. Capitalize on the Millennials’ affinity for networking. Not just comfortable with teams and group activities, your Millennial employees like to network around the world electronically.
10. Provide work-life balance. Your Millennial employees are used to cramming their lives with multiple activities, Heathfield says. Although they work hard, they are not into the 60-hour workweeks defined by the Baby Boomers. Balance and multiple activities are important. Ignore this at your peril, advises Heathfield.
Millennials and More … There’s a Lot of Moving Parts To Keep Track Of
As if it wasn’t already hard enough to find and keep the best Millennial employees, you also need to make sure you stay in compliance with the various California and federal antibias laws relating to job postings, retention of applications, interview questions, and more. Even an inadvertent mistake in this area could mean a devastating lawsuit for your company.
What’s the best way to stay on top of everything? Our fully updated reference manual on hiring and retention, written specifically for California employers.
Hiring & Retention: A Complete Guide for California Employers covers everything you need to know about hiring and keeping the best employees, including:
- Solid methods for advertising open positions
- Legal concerns to stay on top of when posting a job
- The essential components of job descriptions
- How to screen applicants, effectively and legally
- What to do when you discover damaging information about a job candidate
- Interview questions you should ask—and the questions you should never ask
- Tips for conducting informative, effective interviews
- What to do before you make a job offer to your top-choice candidate
- How to negotiate a job offer that’s attractive to both sides
- The recordkeeping requirements for new hires: I-9s, W-4s, and more
- Your reporting and notice obligations regarding new hires
- The real reasons employees leave—and how to combat them
- Why you should keep a close eye on your employee retention rate, and how to boost it if it falls too low
- The most effective onboarding strategies
- Compensation packages that improve retention
- Employee benefits that make retention rates soar—without breaking the bank
- Training that improves employee productivity, skills, and retention
- Exit interviews: how to conduct them with retention in mind
- And much more!
It’s like having a California employment lawyer on call, working 24/7 on your most pressing hiring and retention questions and concerns, at a fraction of the cost.
Stay Fully Up-To-Date, Automatically
Best of all, we’ll send you a brand-new edition each year so you always have the most up-to-date policies available. Don’t delay—order today and ensure your hiring and retention policies help you attract and keep the best, without opening yourself up to potential legal liability.
Order your copy now—your satisfaction is 100 percent guaranteed!
Download your copy of Win the Online Recruiting War today!