How to Lead Millennials in the Workplace

Hey everybody, thank you for joining me. My name is Matt Vadie. I'm with ERG Payroll and HR at ergpayroll.com, and today we're going to talk about leading millennials in the workforce. And while normally we would talk about multiple generations in the workforce, and we will, we're going to talk specifically about millennials today because this has been a hot topic amongst our clients and employers in general. And we'll talk more about that in just a little while. So first, I want you to answer this question for me. Finish this sentence: Millennials are tech— Did you say savvy? That's wrong. This is a common myth. Millennials are not tech savvy. They're actually tech dependent. They don't really have much of an idea of how the phone you're holding was made. They just know that they can't live without it. As a matter of fact, most of the gadgets that millennials are addicted to, and most of us are addicted to— I'm a Gen Xer myself, as we'll talk about shortly— were made by boomers like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and others. So millennials wake up in the morning, they post their life on Snapchat and Instagram. The entire generation is digital. As a matter of fact, 41% of millennials said they would rather communicate electronically than face-to-face or over the telephone. So tech savvy, not so much. Tech dependent, absolutely. But that's just one of the myths we're going to discuss today while we talk about different ways to lead this generation and maximize what I believe is the most important generation in the workforce. So once again, my name is Matt Vady. I'm with ERG Payroll and HR out of Columbia, South Carolina. If you have any questions, you can contact me at matt@ergpayroll.com or follow us on Twitter @MattVady or @ergpayroll. I've been in human resources for about 15 years. I own and operate a, a human resources outsourcing and software company, and I work with hundreds of companies every single day helping them find ways to better lead, engage, retain, and grow their top talent. So why are millennials so important? Well, if you're a boomer or Gen Xer, you might not think millennials are the most important generation in the workforce, but I'm gonna talk through some points today that prove that that is the case. And if you disagree, that's fine, but I would say you might be impeding your own progress if you're not maximizing the talent of this awesome generation and how they can help your team to get ahead. It's important to understand the numbers behind the millennial generation. First of all, they're your consumers. In 2017, millennials surpassed boomers for spending in the market, and they spent $1.3 trillion. So regardless of your industry, millennials are not only your employees and teammates, and maybe you're one of them, but they're also the number one consuming generation in the market. 26% of millennials are married at age 28 versus 48% of millennials when they turn— or excuse me, of boomers as they turn 28 years old. This is an important statistic to understand because the concept of work-life balance has changed. Priorities have changed drastically. So when people talk about work-life balance and what's important to the millennial generation, you have to understand that their values have changed. And has your company changed? If you're a company that's been in business for a long period of time, you have to understand that it makes sense to change with the times so that generations are engaged based on their current priorities. And finally, this is the best educated generation in history. 61% of millennials have attended college, and that's 15% more than boomers. The reason why is boomers have actually done an excellent job of letting their kids know the importance and value of an education in the marketplace and how important it is to employers to have secondary education. Finally, the millennials make up more than, or almost half of the workforce. Not only can you not ignore half of the workforce, you can't ignore some of the challenges that come with it. So with this generation taking up nearly half the workforce, this creates a lot of new issues for employers that we aren't always used to, one of which is the generational tension between boomers and millennials. I saw this come to fruition recently with one of our clients where we had a millennial manager who had a boomer. That worked underneath her, and she had always asked him to do things and was never quite getting the response that she'd hoped for. And she'd come to me for counsel and just said, "Look, he doesn't follow any of my instructions. He never does anything I ask. He's always very combative with me, and I'm not sure how to deal with him." And from his side of the table, he saw it as, "She's always bossing me around. I know what to do. I just need her to let me know what she needs done and get out of the way." And this comes down to how generations want to be, uh, led and need to lead. Millennials want to be seen as an authoritative figure. They're always trying to show that they know what they're doing and they understand. So sometimes that may come across in a fashion that, uh, can be off-putting to a boomer generation who knows what they want, what they need to do, and just be empowered to do it. So they, that's the most important piece is that they just needed to know how to work together. He needed to be empowered. She needed to learn how to empower him to do the job and ultimately understand that he had all the knowledge and wisdom and she just needed to lead him there by asking him questions, not necessarily giving him orders. So they accomplished great things together once we could get the communication down and get them on the same team. But sometimes that communication barrier can be too much to overcome. So let's talk through some other ways we can get past that. Now, one of the biggest problems we see in the marketplace as it relates to the millennial generation is finding, keeping, and growing top talent. 71% of millennials are disengaged at work, and a large percentage of those are actively disengaged at work. And the average ten— tenure of a millennial at an organization is only 2 years. And Gallup found that fi— 60% of millennials, that's 60%, are open to looking for new opportunities right now. So 60% of your millennials are open to looking for a new opportunity. And millennial turnover is costing organizations in the United States $30.5 billion, with a B, annually. Now you need to recognize that making a bad hire or having an empty seat because you can't find somebody is really, really expensive. Either way, it's gonna cost your organization money. But the average cost to replace a millennial has grown to about $24,000. So the risk you have is if you can't hold on to them, that you're going to be part of this statistic here. So what we want to do is help you find ways to attract, engage, and retain millennial top talent. Because what's even worse is that 71% that we just talked about who are working at your organization but are actively disengaged and they quit while they're still working for you. So we don't want people that stay and quit. Let's talk through some ways that we can prevent this from happening. First, we need to understand who are the millennials, what do they actually care about. To understand, we need to look at that generations in the workforce and their communication preferences. So baby boomers, you'll see on the left, 51 to 69 years old. Generation X in the middle, 36 to 50. Generation Y or millennials, 16 to 35 years old. And the percentage of the workforce that they make up.

Now, what's different about each of these generations?

Let's talk first about the communication preferences. Boomers would love to talk on the phone or face-to-face. They only want to email when required. Gen Xers love email and text message rather than maybe, you know, a lot of us also like to pick up the phone too, but we will settle for a text message next behind that. And Gen Y would rather Snapchat you, text, social media, talk to you in, in some electronic format. Rather than having a face-to-face or a one-on-one conversation with you. Other characteristics, boomers are loyal workaholics. They desire quality work and will take their time to get the quality job done. Whereas Gen Xers put a premium on family time. They're very entrepreneurial. And probably one of my favorite things about Gen X, and when I heard this, it resonated with me greatly, is that we are an angry generation and we don't know why. And millennials, we're gonna talk more about some of the characteristics characteristics of the millennial generation in just a moment. Now, why I bring this up is it's really important that your benefits and your compensation and your work format are accommodating to each of these three different mannerisms and characteristics. Different things matter for each generation. So if you're not creating a workplace that is accustomed to each of these generations, then you're going to miss a large percentage of your workforce.

And I know that there's some old school employers out there that think it's my way or the highway.

We don't need to modify our work environment to accommodate different generations. Well, that's on you and you're gonna lose top talent and you're gonna lose productivity as a result. So you can have that mindset, but I can tell you that in the long term, it's not going to result in increased employee satisfaction, engagement. And the thing about high employee engagement levels is that productivity spikes drastically with engagement levels. So as a matter of fact, the top 30% of your employees, the most actively engaged, outperform the bottom 70% by 200%. So lemme say that again. Your top 30% of people that are the most actively engaged are gonna outperform the rest of your team by 200%. So if you think this stuff doesn't matter, you might wanna put yourself in check. All right, let's learn a little bit more about the millennials. So millennials are experiencing what we call delayed adulthood. They are behind. Today's 28-year-old is proven to be 3 to 5 years behind prior generations. They graduate later, they're getting married later if they get married at all, and they are starting their careers and having kids later, experiencing that delayed adulthood. Ironically, I oftentimes see the hypocrisy of parents who tell their kids to take time and travel overseas after graduation, uh, you know, take that gap year, go do something that they're passionate about just because they never had the opportunity when they graduated college. Only to let it negatively influence their perception if they're the, in the hiring chair reviewing resumes. So the same boomer who tells his kid to go study abroad for 2 years, looks at a resume, sees a gap in employment, and then holds it against them negatively. So you have to, uh, you have to look at it from both sides as, as both a parent and an employer and understand that some of these things that are unique and different about this delayed adulthood can actually be very valuable to us and, and give us great perspectives that are unique and different than our own.

Let's talk about one of the biggest myths that I hear when it comes to the millennial generation, and that's that they're entitled and they, you know, they think the world belongs to them and they should get a participation trophy for everything. This is one of the biggest bogus things I've ever heard. First of all, they're not entitled, they just expect more.

Right?

They've got really high expectations because they got parents that set the bar really high. And the things that were wronged on the boomer generation were pounded into the millennials that they weren't gonna let those things happen to them. So they're achievement-oriented. A big thing about this is you look at the learning environment, how it's changed over the last 15 to 20 years, and everything's been gamified. Boomer parents have taught millennials goal setting and drive. They are very achievement-oriented individuals. They're also socially conscious. So you think about how many large corporations, how many boomer parents were laid off for comp— by companies that they worked at for 20, sometimes 30 years, you know, sitting around the kitchen table complaining about how this employer that they worked with for so long could then turn their back on them and they felt no real connection to their work. Well, millennials have a different perspective. They saw their parents sacrifice. They want an organization that is cause-driven, that they can be proud of the work they do. They're also team players. Going back to that changing learning environment, along with the fact that, I mean, heck, my kids started sports at 2 and 3 years old. People start playing sports very young. They're also in teams in school very young. They're used to being on a team, which was a tremendous asset to folks that are in a team environment like many businesses are. They're continuous learners. We talked earlier about 61%, uh, having that college education. They're highly educated, smart group of individuals, very involved in education by their parents, camps, things like this. Uh, being the best educated generation in history cannot be overlooked.

It, it's tremendous to see what this generation can grasp when you bring them onto your team.

One of the things that excites me the most is this digital natives piece.

So they never had to adapt their life to technology. Technology has always been a part of their their life. Most of us have lived through some large generational shift where technology changed drastically, whereas the millennial generation, technology has always been advanced from the time they were, they were old enough to know better.

Uh, my mother-in-law, as a matter of fact, tells me a great story about my little brother-in-law who could not figure out how to open the car door when he, when the battery went dead in the remote key fob. He didn't even understand that you could just use a key to open the door. Because he thought the remote was the only way to do it. And that often reminds me of when I was a child, I was the remote control. So my parents would just send me over to the TV and I would turn the big knob, thunk, thunk, thunk, and change from channel to channel.

Whereas obviously, you know, the technology shifts that we've seen have been unique compared to what millennials have seen.

And finally, the last thing and the most exciting thing to me as somebody who's got a team that's made up primarily of millennials is that they're optimistic. So we talked earlier about, I'm a Gen Xer and I am angry and I have no idea why. This millennial generation is strangely optimistic, especially since they leave school with an average of $27,000 in student loan debt. They are optimistic. They come to work every day with a great attitude and a smile on their face, and they're happy to help. It's a fantastic thing to have even with all the turmoil in the world.

They have great attitudes and are great team players.

So, let's talk about how all these characteristics play into how you can attract, engage, and retain top talent in the millennial generation. So, first we need to understand what the average tenure is for these generations. So, we talked earlier about the cost of turnover, and that is huge. We're gonna talk in just a moment about how to reduce that cost. But what do you think the average tenure is for a millennial employee? It's 2 years. So in comparison, the average tenure, tenure for a Gen X employee is 5 years, and it's 7 years for baby boomers. So one of the main reasons millennials are more likely to change jobs is because they're not willing to stick around if they don't believe they're receiving any personal benefit or growth. Goes back to that expecting more. They expect more from their employer and they expect more from their career. So you have to show them how you're going to deliver on that. So when you want to take a look at how to attract and retain millennials, it all starts with understanding what benefits are important to them. When we looked at a survey of over 2,500 millennials in the workforce and what was most valued benefit to them, I think a lot of you will be shocked when you see that the first is training and development. Talk about what an educated group they are and how important it is for them to be able to develop themselves and get ahead. It's actually quite interesting. One time I gave this presentation in front of a group, and afterwards a gentleman walked up to me and he said, you know, the thing about this millennial generation, it's funny, they had a guy that was working for me for about 3 months, and he came up to me and he asked, you know, what's it going to take for me to reach VP at this company? And And I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe his audacity of why he would already be talking about trying to be a VP level in our organization. And I asked him, I said, "Well, what's it cost you to tell him what he needs to do to become a VP?" And he looked at me surprised. And this is one of the biggest mindset changes that people have to make is that it costs you nothing to show somebody the picture, the vision of where you're going, what they need to do to get to that level, right? So if he needed to be a VP, I'm sure there are some milestones he would need to have done before that. He would have needed to have promoted to another role. He would have needed to have been able to do certain things, you know, certain tasks in a way of mastery, etc., etc. So why not paint that picture? Why not help them show what things they would need to do to develop in their career to reach that level? This is troubling to me that people would think that it's a sense of entitlement just by asking that question, whereas it's actually a show of initiative for somebody who wants to get ahead in your organization and be a future player for you. So make sure that your perspective isn't one of, uh, oh, I think these millennials are entitled, so I'm going to take everything they say the wrong way, whereas it's something that you're actually understanding. Hey, you've got an employee here with initiative and you need to help develop that. So training and development is huge, and this is something that you need to make sure you're talking about during the interview and recruiting process, something that you're touting. Talk an awful lot about employment brand, and it's a great opportunity to improve your employment brand by touting your training and development programs, touting your flexible working hours if you have it, cash bonuses. Obviously everybody cares about cash bonuses, but look at these two things that come before everything related to financial gain: training and development, flexible working hours. Things are really important to the millennial generation. They also want to grow with inside of this these particular functions. And so a couple of ways that you can maximize these benefits are to set up a continuous learning environment. So one of the things we always like to do is see companies have the employee own their training program. What are they gonna do to get better and what resources are you gonna provide them to get better with? Another thing you can do is set up collaborative multigenerational work teams. So when you talk about the flexibility of the working environment, you talk about development. Trying to do some projects that involve multigenerational teams is a great way to allow people to work together and work on that retention.

And cross-training across other departments so people understand the impact of the work they do and how it impacts other areas of the organization are a fantastic way to maximize some of these benefits and keep the people that you've recruited into your team.

One of the things when we're understanding how to lead millennials, we have to understand how they think. So as a Gen Xer, this illustration is perfect for me. I am a linear thinker. I think about the path, the problem, and the solution. And I know that to get from A to B, I have to do step— from A to Z, I have to do steps A through Z, right? So I, I wanna know what steps 1 through 7 are to get to number 7. I wanna know exactly how to get to where I'm going. Whereas millennial generation, sometimes you're often better off saying, hey, Here is what the outcome looks like. How do you think we should get there? And allowing them to think through it. And quite frankly, they may come up with some better ways of getting there than us Gen Xers, Boomers, whoever it might be, or even other Millennials would've thought of. They're very creative problem solvers and they don't always think in terms of A, B, C, D, E, F, G. So we have to say, all right, look, here's the desired outcome. Do you understand? Probe for understanding. We're going to talk about communication in just a second and how important that is, but you have to make sure they understand what the desired outcome is and then let them think through some different ways to get there and keep them on one of the correct paths as they go. But this is a different problem-solving style that many generations struggle to understand. But you, you have to understand, everything doesn't have to be done the same old, same old way. A lot of you probably heard the story about A woman is cooking Thanksgiving dinner and she's making a roast and she cuts the end off the roast and put it in the pan. And her husband says, why do you always cut the end off the roast?

And she says, well, my grandmother taught me how to cook the roast and she always cut the end off the roast.

And she says, Grandma, why do we cut the end off the roast? And Grandma says, well, I always cut it off mine because my pan was too small. And so sometimes doing things the way they've always been done is not always the best way to do them. And there was never— the reason why they were done that way might not still be applicable today. So allow your millennials to be creative problem solvers and help you to find new and unique ways to problem solve—

solve problems.

So going a step further with that, we talk about communication styles. One of the biggest challenges with leading millennials is the differences in communication styles. What this reminds me of is an experiment that was done a few years ago with tappers and listeners. So there was a group of people in the, in the subject where that were tapping out from a list of songs that were well known to the people in the experiment, things like Happy Birthday to You, Row, Row Your Boat. They tapped the rhythms of the songs on a table and the listeners were asked to guess the song. So the tappers were then asked to predict how often the listeners would get the song right. And they predicted that 50% of the time the listener would understand the song that they were tapping on the table. So every time you're tapping that song, if you do it right now, tap out a song, and you will hear the rhythm to that in your head. And so you obviously think the other person on the side of the table is hearing that same rhythm. So they guessed that 50% of the time the listener heard the song the way they did. The actual result was 2.5% of the time the person got the song right. So they almost never got it right. Instead of 1 out of 2 correct guesses, it actually turned to be 1 out of 40. So why did that happen? Exactly like we just said. The tappers always hear the song in their head while they're tapping. You, you can't unhear it while you're doing it, but the listeners had no tune while you were doing it, just a strange pattern of sounds. So the tapper's intent was to communicate a song and the listener's impact was just random noise. So one more thing about the experiment is that not only did people not get the song right, but the tappers tended to get really frustrated with the listeners for not understanding what the song was. It's so easy. What is wrong with them? I don't get it. But there's nothing wrong with them. They just weren't understanding what you were trying to communicate. So this plays out in the workplace all the time. We try to communicate an issue to a teammate, we say what we think is crystal clear, they come back with a different end result than what we expected, and then we get frustrated with what they do when ultimately it's the fault of the tapper, not the listener, right?

Um, or both for that matter.

So Let's make sure we are giving feedback and probing for understanding when trying to communicate with our teammates. And this is particularly applicable to the millennial generation. So, one of the things to keep in mind when communicating and tapping out your song to your millennial teammates is that they speak best in short— they understand best in short increments. We live in a world that's 140 characters or 280 characters nowadays at a time. And brevity matters. So you have to make sure that you are brief and you are clear, succinct, and straightforward. And then you probe for understanding. So get your message out and then ask for understanding. And let's, let's be honest. I mean, this is a good practice regardless of the type of employee you're dealing with, but with millennials, it's super important. So give the outcome you expect in concise and straightforward language and make sure that they get it. And this goes also to the process of hiring and understanding what you've been hired to do. So the majority of performance problems with employees can be traced back to a lack of clear expectations. If you're— if your connection to your employees throughout the interview, onboarding, and, you know, 90-day assessment period is not crystal clear on what the desired expectations for the role are, then you're not gonna get those expectations from the individual that you're, you're working with. So make sure that you are clear and your message is consistent from the time somebody is screening a candidate to the time they are 90 days into the role and beyond. And finally, one of the most important things when dealing with millennials is that giving feedback is one of the cheapest, most time-efficient, and valuable things you can do as a leader. It helps to improve morale and retention. There was a recent study by PwC, and they discovered that millennials are more likely to leave if their needs for support appreciation, and flexibility are not met. And most of those things are purely met via communication, verbal and/or written. So be conscious of the importance of communication with this generation. All right, so how do we retain the millennial generation? So we've, we've got them in the door, we've communicated clear expectations, we've worked on our communication to make sure that we are putting the right people in the right seats, and we've communicated clear expectations, what are some things that are really important to them to stay? So we talked about the flexibility. So while they've grown up in a much more structured environment, the educational system has really been altered to teach autonomy. So you can choose your workstation, you can choose your group. This is the type of thing they've become accustomed to. So they want some flexibility with their work assignments. They want to be able to have some flexibility with where they, where they sit, who they work with, how they handle things on a daily basis. I mean, we go so far as we have people that are constantly rotating workstations at our office, um, you know, the, the day changes pretty regularly. We change, you know, roles, allow people to cross-chain, understand different things. You want to make sure you're giving people flexibility also when it comes to their hours. I'm, I'm sitting here today at a time when some of our staff hasn't come in yet because they just work different hours than other members of the staff. So some people go so far as to put a more structured flexible hourly, uh, period in place. So from 10 to 3 are our core hours. You can either come in at 7 and work till 3, or you can come in at 10 and work till 6, whatever your definition of flexibility is that works for your organization, make sure that you do your best to allow some flexibility. They want to be trusted and recognized as peers. So another thing is recognition. Now, recognition is a really big issue for a lot of companies in general, in that they just don't recognize great performance. The thing about recognition is that, A, it's typically free, so A, it doesn't take anything to recognize the fact that somebody's done a great job inside of a team meeting or with a company-wide email or just verbally to recognize them in private. And B, it's something that just makes people feel great. There's just no way around it. Every human being needs validation that they're doing their job right and that you appreciate what they come in and do every day. Let— recognize your team. We had this happen recently where, you know, we had a client who, when we initially sat down with them, we asked them, do you have regular team meetings? No, we haven't had any regular team meetings. We said we help them institute a weekly regular team meeting just so that they can hit on some key initiatives for the organization, communicate more directly with their team. Immediately their employee engagement levels went up drastically because they started to identify, hey, our team is completely disconnected from our vision.. And now we've, we've not only recognized that and started to communicate it more regularly, but we've recognized the performance of our individuals every single week and in a fashion that is really helpful to them so that their, their peers can see when somebody else is recognized, feel great for them and feel great for themselves. But also it creates competition where others now want to get that recognition as well. So, um, that's a very, very great, uh, thing if you're not doing recognition today. Some simple things, you know, make sure you master the basics. Are you gonna recognize specific core values that people are doing great? Are you gonna recognize birthdays, anniversaries? Like, knock out a few of the core basics. Don't come out with an all-out complex recognition program.

Just get great at a few things first and then build on it over time.

And then finally, work-family. So Millennials wanna feel included. They wanna be part of something bigger than themselves. You can do a lot of things like team building, group meetings, mentoring, and buddy programs to assist with this. This generation really needs mentors and they appreciate it more than most. So if you don't have a mentor program for new hires, I strongly suggest you look into this. You know, we have a lot of clients that the mindset is we're going to bring in people and let them grow and flourish. So I'll never forget one of our clients when we initially came in to sit down with them. They're a large group. Well, decent-sized group, about 100 employees. And they had an intern sitting in in the initial meeting while we were doing contract negotiations. And I was just very interested in the fact that they were letting this individual sit in on the meetings. And they said, well, after he left, I said, does he get involved in so many of the financial decisions? They said, he is a really sharp young man who we see being a part of this organization for a long time. And so we want to let him be at the table for the biggest conversations at the highest level. And that way he'll understand the inner workings of the organization and he'll only grow more over time. So great mindset to have when you're creating that work environment that is focused on retaining people and showing them where they can go with the organization. And finally, it's super important. Culture matters. People want to be a part of purposeful work. They want the flexibility and the trust. And you just can't fake it. You know, the number one answer on what is most important for millennials when searching for a career is they want to be a part of work that matters. If you haven't read Simon Sinek's Start with Why or watched the TED Talk, you know, so you know what this golden circle is from, then please go out and do it. If you're a leader, you should watch that 12-minute TED Talk. Simon Sinek, S-I-N-E-K, is a great jumping-off point to understand that you start with why. What is your why? People don't care what you do. They don't care how you do it. They care why you do it. And that is particularly true for your millennial counterparts. They want to know why you're in business. They want to know what your mission is. They want to know what impact, what footprint they're going to leave on the world. They broadcast their lives on social media. They want to tell a story they can be proud of. They want to work for a company that they can be proud of what they do. So identify your why and create your employment brand around this. And you need to start with that from day one. With the why of what you do and how the work that your team does is going to impact the world. And finally, I almost always end every presentation with this slide. 95% of my assets drive out the gate every evening. It's my job to maintain a work environment that keeps those people coming back every morning. Employees are your number one asset. You can control how they feel about coming to work. Change starts from the top. Be purposeful about creating the type of culture people want to be a part of, and people will be a part of it for a long time to come. Well, you made it. You did it. You get a participation trophy. Um, so in classic millennial fashion, it would be nothing without a participation trophy. So unfortunately though, there are no participation trophies in business. You can't ignore the fact that half of the workforce and the majority of the marketplace are— expect to be successful and are millennials, and you must adapt to succeed. So I know that everyone out there is going to do what it takes to make sure that we're creating the type of work environment that is comfortable and accommodating and productive for all generations. And if you should have any questions related to how to create that type of work environment, you can reach out to us at ergpayroll.com or matt@ergpayroll.com, and we'll be happy to assist. Thanks so much for your time and have an awesome day.