How to Manage & Drive Millennials
“How many holidays do you offer in your company?”
“Can we work from home ?”
“Are the working hours flexible?”
“How much working hours do we need to work as I have some activities after”
When did this change exactly ? I remember my first interview 12 years ago where I only asked questions about the company but would have never dared asking such questions, that seem so normal today…
A few years ago, when we started to hear that kind of questions during interviews, I must admit we were outraged. How could a candidate who wants to integrate our company ask so few questions about our company and so many about the benefits ?
Is he really motivated to join our teams or is just looking for work life balance ? And most of all, why is work life balance so important to him/her? ”When we were young, bla bla bla …”
This is the moment where you discover:
- You’re getting older
- Generations have changed
- You will need to adapt otherwise you’ll stay behind
Millennials are different but not worse than the others : they just have other needs. As a reminder, millennials are all the people born between 1980 & 2000 (oops I might be one of those actually but they still seem so different).
What you need to understand about millennials:
- They might have had parents who work their a** off so they don’t want to do the same with their kids and/or they want to enjoy more of their lives than the parents did only after they retired.
- Millenials are eager to learn but also want to be listened : they want to participate as an active actor and not just as a spectator.
- With the apparition of cellphones, social networks, whatsapp, and many other ways to connect, millennials are THE multi-tasking generation and they love it.
- And with this comes the love of networking — they like to be “connected” to different people and “follow” people they’ll be able to learn from.
- Work-life balance : they want to be the most efficient possible in order to spend less time in the office.
Once we acknowledged this, we understood that:
- Environment is key for millennials : we need to provide fun, challenging & learning environment.
- Asking questions about benefits is just a way to re-assure them as they’re more interested in the environment than in the money (even if this remains important, of course).
- Companies should reinvent the way of working and take advantage from the multitasking talent of the millennial.
- Driving with money only won’t work.
- Participative management where everyone feels he can ask questions without fear and also actively participate to the company’s life by making suggestions for instance, will be a true added value for the millenial.
- Providing a life-work balanced environment doesn’t mean that they won’t do anything — it just means that we, as employers, need to change our ways to drive into a way that drive them.
And, as we’re still talking about human beings and everyone of us is unique, the best way to understand how to drive a person will always be by simply asking the question and, most of all, listening to the answers.
— Madam Recruitment.
