Month: September 2017

An executive I know hired a young woman for his marketing department and put her to work managing some current campaigns. Then he found out 18 months later that she was a bona fide expert about marketing on social media. I mean, she practically lived on social media. She could have brought so much to her new employer from day one – yet that value went completely untapped for a year and a half.

Call that knowledge loss, call it money wasted, or call it something worse. Whatever you call it, it’s bad. How did it happen? I don’t work for that company, so I’m not sure. But it was probably because the top executives there were all baby boomers. It probably never occurred to them that a new millennial worker had ideas they needed to hear.

Is it happening in your company? Here are some steps to take to be sure you’re discovering and tapping the unique insights and skills your younger workers possess.

Strategy One: Uncover Hidden Skills during the Recruiting Process

It’s a mistake to screen job applicants by only saying, “Here’s what you’ll have to do on the job . . . can you cut it?” Ask open-ended questions instead, like, “We’re recruiting a team to market our new app – what do you think we need to do?” Or, “We are currently using the XYZ platform to track ad usage by in our franchise locations – do you know of anything better?”

To use a Zen kind of paradigm, be the student, not the teacher. The things you learn could be very valuable indeed.

Strategy Two: Invite Comments and Ideas during New Employee Training

Training is an ideal time to ask new hires important questions like, “How strong do you think our brand is” or, “Do our competitors do something better than we do?” If you ask questions like those, you let new employees know that you are a company that values honest and open input. And training is the place to do it. After an employee begins working for you, he or she may want to communicate big ideas only to a supervisor, where they can die. Or worse, he or she might never voice those big ideas at all.

Strategy Three: Have Big Delayered Meetings Where Everyone Presents Big Ideas

Get employees from all level into one room and ask them for the biggest and craziest ideas they have for improving your business. To avoid stifling the flow, just collect the ideas on a whiteboard or on sticky notes and go back to discuss them later. Those brainstorming meetings helps assure that good ideas from the ranks are heard directly by upper management, not left sitting on the desks of managers throughout your company.

Strategy Four: Get Some Reverse Mentoring Going

Reverse mentoring has become popular in many organizations. The idea usually to have an older executive mentored about technology by a younger, tech-savvy employee. I would recommend widening that lens and having millennials and other young workers keep your senior executive team up to speed on marketplace trends, products that have entered the marketplace, news about “hot” competing companies, and more. The wider you can cast your net for ideas from young employees, the more you benefit.

Strategy Five: Reward the Big Ideas and Information that Millennials Contribute

If an employee delivers a valuable piece of information to you, offer recognition, feedback, or increased responsibilities. Treat it like gold. If you don’t, that bright young mind is likely to think, “Why should I tell my company anything . . . they ignored me the last time I did.” It’s up do you to offer the recognition that keeps information flowing.

In summary . . .

Millennials have ideas, information and skills that you need. Are you listening to them? If you aren’t, let’s face it, the fault lies with you. Open the doors, let the information in, and watch your company improve in ways you could never imagine.

Do you want to get much more from the millennial employees you hire . . . and do you hope that they will continue to work for you for the long, not the short, term? If those are your hopes, it is essential to bear in mind that millennial employees’ attitudes and beliefs about working differ dramatically from those held by baby boomers and members of other age groups.

Consider these findings from How Millennials Want to Work and Live, a recent study from Gallup:

• • Millennials value learning – 60% of them say that the opportunity to learn and grow on the job is extremely important. The study found that only 40% of baby boomers feel the same way.

• • Millennials view many jobs as stepping stones  21% of them have changed jobs within the last year. Only 50% plan to remain in their jobs for at least the next year, compared to 60% of members of all other groups.

• • Millennials expect to advance in their jobs 50% of them say advancement is extremely important, vs. 40% of boomers.

Learning and Training Retain Millennials and Maximize their Productivity

In the companies that I have led, I have seen the realities that underlie statistics like those. I have also seen first-hand that training is the key to reducing millennial turnover and increasing their productivity.

And here are some of the reasons why:

• • Millennials like to feel capable and confident in their jobs. When I was their age, I was happy to learn the skills I needed on the fly. Millennials do not feel that way. They want to look good and feel confident from the first day they arrive on the job. Training is what makes that happen.

• • Millennials welcome training. They like to apply the learning skills they built while they were in school. To them, learning feels as natural as eating three meals a day. As the Gallup study finds, they are eager to learn. In contrast, many baby boomers tend to view training as a burden that they have to endure.

• • Modern training technologies speaks to millennials. Most of them love to be trained on their mobile phones and tablets, which are the most powerful training options available to many companies today. The result is better knowledge transfer, even to groups of employees who work in multiple locations.

• • Millennials welcome mentoring relationships with their managers. The Gallup study found that 60% of millennials feel that the quality of the people who manage them is extremely important. Your training is an ideal place to set up expectations that millennials will enjoy close, collaborative relationships with their supervisors. With that in mind, your training for new employees can establish mentoring, not reporting, relationships.

• • Millennials love independence, but they love teams too. This is a contradiction, but millennials think of themselves as both rugged individuals and eager team players. So letting millennials get to know their teammates during training, and fostering a sense of team/group identity, helps convince them that they have joined an organization where they belong.

• • Millennials are career-oriented. Do they love to hop from job to job? Yes, they do. But only if they sense that their opportunities to advance are blocked. That is why I believe in creating a personalized career development plan for each new employee. (The exception being seasonal or other short-term employees who will probably not remain in your employ for long.) One example? Enroll new employees in management training programs from their first days on the job. Millennials like to know their next steps as they advance in your organization, and training is the best place to explain them.

In summary . . .

I firmly believe that millennials are the most energized, skilled and capable generation ever to enter the workforce. How do you unlock their potential and make sure they remain in your employ for the long term? You do it with great training.