How do I manage Millennials?

If you want to know our 6 top tips to manage your millennial employees, read our latest blog . . .

You need to understand your millennials and work with their strengths.  Today, millennials make up a huge percentage of the workforce, and so it’s essential to both appreciate how to effectively manage them and understand how to encourage their leadership skills.

If your company isn’t effectively managing millennials, then even the most impressive list of benefits won’t keep them at your company. They will be looking elsewhere—and will be heading out that door as soon as they find something better.

A strong company needs strong management practices that play to the strengths of their employees. Here are some tips with easy-to-implement practices that will help you get better at managing millennials.

1.Understand who they are

First of all, it’s important to make sure that you understand who your workers are and what matters to them most. Millennials play an increasingly large role in the workplace, and they bring unique attitudes, experiences, and perspectives.

• Millennials are less likely to stay in a job simply for a pay check as they tend to choose a job for specific work experience, and if they don’t get that expected experience, they are likely to look elsewhere.
• They are looking for jobs that provide meaning and purpose. They are drawn to brands they connect with—and will stay with and advocate for companies that honour their brand promises and make them feel like what they do as a job –
• They want to use their individual talents and strengths to achieve their best. If they aren’t given opportunities for personal and career growth at their company, they are likely to move on.
• They prefer real-world, practical actions that actually show results. Clearly defined goals and regular feedback are essential to them.

2.Help them learn and grow

Managing millennials is like managing anyone else—you’ve got to find the tactics that make it easier to drive their development and enhance how you communicate:

• Offer ongoing feedback. An annual performance review just isn’t enough for this generation. They want regular feedback and regular assessments of how they are doing.
• Give them opportunities for professional growth. According to research by Cone Communications, 93% of millennials are motivated by the ability to take classes, learn new skills, and advance in their careers.
• Incorporate meaningful personal experiences. 90% of millennials in the workforce are motivated by chances to explore new places and meet new people.

3.Establish clear goals

Be sure to establish and share clear and consistent goals for individual employees, teams, and your overall company.

• Collaborate on goal setting. Allowing your employees input on their personal work goals motivates and engages them more than simply having goals assigned to them.
• Make the goals clear. You should be discussing these goals frequently with individual employees, your entire team, and your corporate leadership.
• Set milestones along the way. Be sure to celebrate all achievements—however small. We found that 87% of millennials are motivated by personal recognition.

4.Make them part of a team

Millennials can be strong team players, but like anyone, they like to feel a sense of team spirit and want to feel like they are part of their company’s success. This means that as part of managing millennials, you need to offer them opportunities to work as part of a group with others.

• Provide mentors and/or team leaders. Millennials are the kind of employees who will check with others before starting a project, are eager to offer their own ideas, and willingly listen to the input of others.
• Let them work together. Because teamwork has been cultivated in their schooling, sports, and play, millennials work much better together to accomplish clear goals.
• Create communities. Millennials love to advance the welfare of a group—even over their own individual success. They have grown up creating both virtual and real-world communities focused on shared interests, values, and goals. Managers should nurture this sense of community in order to attract, engage, and retain millennial employees.

5.Give them a sense of purpose

Millennials tend to want to make a statement with their lives and with their jobs. They need to feel that what they do is meaningful and actually makes a difference in the world. This also serves to increase employee engagement—which in turn improves employee retention rates.

• Initiate recycling programs at work and enable employees to pursue philanthropic causes affiliated with your company. Research has indicated that 75% of millennials are willing to take a pay cut in order to work for a socially responsible company, and 89% expect their employers to provide activities for environmental responsibilities in the workplace.
• Provide opportunities and resources for them to make positive social and environmental changes at home. 83% of millennials want this support from their company, and 84% want their company to help them find ways to get more involved in their communities.
• Let them share. 76% of millennials want to be able to share their personal photos, videos, and work experiences on their own social channels. 75% want to use designated company hashtags to do this.

6.Keep in mind their strengths and weaknesses

Most millennials grew up in an environment where they were almost constantly tuned in to electronic devices. This has impacted their overall skill set in both positive and negative ways.

• Give them access to new equipment and programs. For millennials, navigating internal as well as external communications comes naturally, and multitasking is an art form. They thrive with new technologies.
• Provide them with data to organise and arrange. Most millennials can easily organise and understand immense amounts of data and compile it into easy-to-use, organised formats.
• Consider two-way mentoring programs. One of the best ways to help millennials with their weaknesses is to take advantage of their strengths. Let baby boomers and Gen-Xs who struggle with new technology learn from your millennial workers—and have them in turn coach your millennials on how to improve their in-person interpersonal communication skills.

How we can we help you to manage and motivate your millennials?

Book yourself onto our FREE virtual workshop on 13th October at 2pm – How to Manage Millennials, where we will explore how to turn the above ideas into some practical, easy to implement actions that will help engage and motivate your millennials.

Book your place HERE