Get the culture right — everything else follows.
Ah, Millennials. So much to answer for. Or so it went at a breakfast meeting in Manchester last week, where conversation centred on how to design workspaces for a Millennial workforce. This is, after all, the generation that has led the charge in office interiors big on natural light and greenery, on flexible working spaces, amazing tech, and social spaces and programmes.
Why? Partly because Millennials are fast becoming the majority — Weightmans Partner, Richard Corran, said half of its workforce fall into that bracket — and partly because they will vote with their feet (i.e. leave) if they don’t feel valued.
I looked out the window as Richard said this, thinking about my own Millennial team, and the particular challenges of managing them. Well, perhaps not so much managing them as managing different mindsets. There’s a gap between Millennials and earlier generations (Gen X, Baby Boomers), one brought about by both rapid social/technological change and political instability — and one that’s best illustrated when older generations dismiss the younger as avocado-eating snowflakes or, worse, the Me Me Me generation.
The thing is, change has been so fast and so fundamental that those in Gen X and above, at least those banging on about avocadoes and snowflakes, just don’t appreciate how different life is now for those in their twenties and thirties. And how different their outlook, behaviour and motivations are as a result.
But back to the breakfast meeting. Millennials have undoubtedly driven workspace design over the past few years, and the focus is generally on space. On the physical and the tech infrastructure, on the eclectic furniture and free coffee, and occasionally on lunchtime yoga and after-work beers.
All those things help. Of course they do. But what makes a Millennial (or, in fact, any) workspace fly is culture.
A few months ago I met some of the founders of the UK’s most successful businesses; companies like UK Fast and Booking.com. I asked a couple of them how they did it — how they turned largely Millennial-fuelled businesses into global success stories. The answer? Culture. “Get the culture right,” said one, “and everything else follows.” (He went on to say it’s not quite as simple as that, of course, but that culture was one of the driving factors.)
So, the challenge for us is not just to design workspaces with Millennials in mind. Adding a few plants, scheduling morning yoga and drafting in an in-house barista are all well and good, but the thing that gets you, me and all the Millennials you can muster out of bed?
Culture. Community. A shared sense of purpose. A sense that what we’re doing, collectively, matters. By all means express that culture through good design, corporate identity, great interiors and that in-house barista, but don’t mistake surface for depth.
