Want to Improve Employees Motivation? Three Things You Need to Know

Millennials, also known as “Generation Y”, were born between 1980 and 2000, and are the children of the “baby boomers”. Unlike previous generations, they grew up in the rapidly changing world of smartphones, laptops, and social media, giving them a set of priorities and expectations markedly different from previous generations.

Keeping millennial employees satisfied is hard

This generation tends to place more emphasis on their personal needs and growth rather than on the goals of their employer. Millennials have a tendency to be uncomfortable with rigid corporate structure, and they expect rapid progression, a varied and interesting career, and constant feedback. Overall, millennials want a management style and corporate structure that are completely different than what their “baby boomer” managers have in place.

Attracting the best of millennial workers is critical to the future of any business, but while hiring them is hard, keeping them satisfied within the firm in the long-term is even harder.

The numbers behind employees satisfaction and career development

According to a survey performed by PwC that included 4,271 participants from 44 different countries:

• 80% of millennials would like to work abroad, and 70% expect to use other languages in their career. Their most desired work location is the US, followed by the UK.
• 75% of millennials believe they will have between 2–5 different employers over the course of their career, while 30% responded that they would like to stay within the same organization, but in a variety of different roles and fields.
• 53% of all respondents stated that the workplace benefit they will value more than salary over the next five years is training and development. 62% of the respondents mentioned e-learning as an important aspect of personal development.

The world is changing, but because many organizations are staying the same, they suffer from low employees satisfaction and retention.

Three insights that will help you adapt your organisation to the new generation:

• Cooperation is key to satisfaction
  Don’t try to hold back your employees, help them progress.
  Ask your employees where they want to be in five or ten years and develop a customized career path within your organization that will help them get there. As millennials tend to switch jobs every two years, the ultimate career path that will keep them within your organization is one that offers a new challenge every 18 to 24 months.
• Foster a learning and development program
  Focus your efforts on building a learning and development program that will help your employees prepare for their next challenge in or out of your company.
  There are many great solutions out there that offer high value to employees, most in the field of eLearning. eLearning allows users to consume information anytime and anywhere, according to their personal preferences.
  Here are some examples of eLearning sites: Coursera, Udacity, NovoEd, Udemy, EDX and more.
• Go global
  There are many different options out there for millennials to engage in international work, ranging from executing a single short-term project with one of your firm’s overseas franchises, to long-term relocation.
  Don’t forget to give your employees the tools they need to adjust and perform their work abroad in the most effective way. Teach them the foreign customs and traditions, tell them what is culturally accepted and what is not, and make sure they can speak the native language properly.

Remember, for millennials, this job is just a means used to get to their next job.
Shaping the right work environment and career paths will help you significantly increase the chances that their next job will be within your firm.

The writer is an entrepreneur and a cofounder at LoroTalk.com