Because they confound the leadership so much, leaders will say “what do you want?” And millennials will say “we want to work in a place with purpose, we want to make an impact, we want free food and bean bag chairs.” And yet when provided all these things they are still not happy. ~ Simon Sinek’s interview on Millennials
Millennials get a pretty bad rap. This generation—defined as the group born between 1982 and 2004—have been labeled as lazy, entitled and overly obsessed with their smart phones. Simon Sinek added insecure and monumentally depressed to the list. Even so, Millennials are the leaders of the future. What these future leaders want most is change.
I know what you are going to say. They just want everything handed to them. Participation trophy syndrome!
Well, a recent study conducted by Gallup.com shows evidence that Millennials may be more like you than you think. As a matter a fact, the scores for employee engagement and workplace satisfaction were pretty even across the board.
Based on the 200,000 Americans surveyed only about 1/3 of people are engaged at work. This number includes all generations currently in the workforce.
So the real question is, if everyone feels that they are waiting for employers to provide what they need to keep them engaged, how do Millennials differ from the previous generations?
The difference is, Millennials aren’t willing to wait. This dissatisfaction results in the job hopping that Millennials are so famous for.
At TimeSquared Concierge it is our job to make sure your employees are well taken care of so they can stay focused at work. That is why we created a survey to find out exactly what millennials really want in the workplace.
Millennials are at the forefront of the quest for workplace change and their desires are universally appealing.
We asked them to rate 5 popular options for making the workplace more “Millennial Friendly.” These are:
- Increasing workplace flexibility so employees are not required to work from the office as often.
- Increasing the number of community service projects sponsored by the corporate employer.
- Creating a mentoring program within the organization.
- Promoting from within the organization to increase opportunities for career advancement.
- Creating a more comfortable collaborative physical office environments equipped with pool tables, onsite coffee shops, open work spaces, etc.
Most would assume that millennials look for a workplace with cool perks like pool tables and onsite coffee shops, but that was actually the least common response. Coming in at first place with an undeniable 50%, the ability to work remotely was the most common response for what creates the ideal workplace.
The collaborative workspaces tied for last place with “increasing the number of employer funded community service projects.”
Second place was promoting from within.
The second most important factor was split more evenly. Promoting from within, employer sponsored community service projects and mentoring programs all scored within 5% of each other.
An internal mentorship programs was most commonly selected as #3.
Until the dollar becomes obsolete, paycheck size won’t falter as the most important factor in selecting a job, but there are some other major considerations in the perks and benefits department.
For instance, over 20% of respondents said that corporate culture making them feel like they make a significant impact on the business is important to them.
Flexible schedules were chosen as the 3rd most important factor.
The biggest shocker? Jobs that require them to work more than 40 hours per week is not a deterrent for a whopping 47%.
Nearly 60% of the millennials who responded to this survey would give 2+ weeks’ notice and help train their replacement when switching jobs. So even if millennials are more likely to quit, they won’t leave you completely high and dry. Not as irresponsible as previously imagined.
Most of the respondents were between the ages of 18 and 29. Check out the survey to see all results.
