Bulls n Bears Entrepreneurship Zone :: Gavin Moffat: Practical tips to ensure millennials thrive in your workplace

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In this extract from his book, Swimming with sharks – Simple business
guidelines for a complex world, Gavin Moffat talks about a conscious
approach to welcome millennials into your business team.

The M word. We have to talk about it, even though it makes you sigh.
Millennials are a reality and they’re not going away. Instead, they are
becoming the workforce, as well as your customer base, suppliers and other
stakeholders.

Millennials are not a strange new lifeform. They are simply another
generation of kids becoming adults and entering the ranks of the
economically active. The bottom line is that we must move away from
believing that millennials are a curious phenomenon. This overused term only
describes a generation of people, an energetic bunch of human beings with
massive contributions to make.

Tension between different generations has been a feature of human
relationships since time immemorial, playing out mostly between parents and
children. It is true that the difference between the Baby Boomers and
Generation X was more marked than between previous generations, but
generation gap as a term was coined long before millennials arrived.

Similarly, generational theory as formulated by William Strauss and Neil
Howe has been around for decades. It does get updated over time – the latest
iteration is the book Millennials Rising – and as such remains useful to
gain insight into a group, or average of people.


Just another generation


However, it is really important to remember that generational theory is a
theory, and individuals are not averages. In broad strokes they share
specific characteristics, but not every individual millennial is an
embodiment of the theory.

Millennials are nothing more or less than a new generation of people
entering the workforce. Because of their common characteristics – which mark
them as a distinct generation – there is value in thinking about how to
incorporate them into your business so that they can add value.

Sadly, too many businesses want automatons, not individuals. Instead of
thoughtfully assimilating individuals, they try to squeeze them into the
sausage factory. While Baby Boomers and even Generation Xers were largely
content with toeing the company line, millennials are a generation that want
to be catered for. They want different things.

On the one hand, they expect their employer to make a difference in
society; on the other, they’re not interested in paying their dues in the
form of, for instance, being an intern and doing intern stuff.

Most millennials believe they have much to offer a business and should,
therefore, be treated as a senior contributor from the outset.


Practical suggestions on how to manage millennials


1. This generation needs a variety of experiences; they were not created to
be in the same job for 40 years. Cater for this by moving them around the
organisation quickly. By exposing interns to the full spectrum of the
business in a short time, you help them to understand how it works as soon
as possible. In this way their enthusiasm can come to you through a prism of
comprehension, rather than from a point of ignorance.

2. Millennials want to learn and grow, but not necessarily in a formal
manner. Create content that allows them to learn on the job and feeds into
what they like to do. An example is to present content that teaches
millennials to engage with business and customers on platforms that mimic
social media.

How about creating a mentoring system that allows for an internship without
the label? Millennials love learning from those they respect so create
something a little more formal that allows for measurement and progression
without the perceived onerous rules and regulations that young professionals
dislike.

3. While money is obviously important, millennials take a broader view of
remuneration. For them it has a lot to do with values. They want to work at
a place they care about, a place that’s cool and hip. In addition to salary,
millennials want to do meaningful work that contributes to the bigger
picture.

Drudgery is not for them. Having said that, you still need to make the
remuneration fair and economically appropriate.

4. The concept of strict working hours and limited and carefully allocated
leave days makes little sense to millennials (a card-carrying member told me
so). Companies would be well advised to work flexibility into their
structures to accommodate this world view.


A conscious approach to get them engaged


I am not advocating wholescale changes to your business – and upsetting
your older employees – to accommodate the youngsters. I am advocating a
conscious approach to welcoming millennials into the office, the workshop or
the customer service desk. By 2023, the growing majority of the workforce
will be millennials. You really have no choice but to make sure that you
attract and retain the right type of millennials to carry your business
forward.

Generally speaking, smaller businesses cope better with the influx of
millennials as their structures, policies and procedures are simpler than
those of mega corporations. To capitalise on this advantage as a small
business owner, be nimble, experiment, and make the changes that will make
your business attractive to the cream of the millennial crop. You can be
creative with things like remote working, cloud-based technology, online
communication tools and hot desks.

Millennials are asking us to revisit, with new energy and focus, the
subject of how to treat employees. Far from singling them out and picking on
them, the task is to recognise what makes them unique, and to respond with a
workplace they can engage with to give and receive maximum value.—
howwemadeitinafrica 



Gavin Moffat

 

 

 

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