The technological revolution does not mean that getting the right person for your business is less important, it means that getting the right person for your business is more important.
And when you’ve got them you are going to need to hang onto them because millennials are three times more likely to change jobs than the previous generation. Millennials now make up a growing part of the workforce and understanding what excites and motivates them is crucial if you are going to recruit the best of them to your business.
Flexible schedules
Giving someone a flexible schedule means relinquishing a certain amount of control, but let’s face it, the ‘You’re five minutes late, Smith’ type of control is pretty archaic and downright corrosive in terms of building strong working relationships.
Recognising that people have personal lives and allowing them to work around the constraints of travel, childcare and even personal inclination, builds respect and co-operation. The focus should be on what gets achieved rather than where or at what time of day it was achieved.
Social Media
Millennials need social media like older folk need TV or the pub. If you don’t have a strong social media presence across several platforms where your employees can build a personal brand, you are unlikely to be very appealing as an employer. Even in industries where social media isn’t known to be critical for business, like construction or dentistry, it’s still important to have a presence, especially for construction social media.
Training programmes/internships
Raised with a belief that they can achieve anything; millennials need to see your
business as one where they can learn and grow. They expect innovation and they want to be part of that innovation. Your business culture needs to be one where failure is not a cue for a tongue lashing but an opportunity for learning.
Modern ways to manage company expenses
If you expect a millennial to meet business expenses out of their own pocket and then wait for however long it takes to be reimbursed, without complaint, then think again. One solution has been to have a company credit card which gets passed around to whoever needs it, but that leads to a lack of accountability and every time it’s used online it exposes the company bank account to hackers.
Issuing your employees with a prepaid credit card gives them freedom, which is so important to millennials. The card is loaded with a set budget by the employer and the employee can use the card just as they would a conventional credit card.
They can upload documents relating to expenses as they go, via the app, and at the end of the month they’ll get a PDF showing what they’ve spent. It’s a way to give even the most junior millennial financial autonomy, it’s convenient for them and it demonstrates trust.
Incentives
If not instant gratification, millennials certainly expect swift gratification, so they respond well to clear goals linked to rewards. They do expect to see a rise in pay, linked to performance, but they also respond well to praise and recognition. Peer to peer praise systems also have the effect of developing strong, mutually supportive teams.
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