Millennials form the biggest generation today and are undisputedly the potential leaders of tomorrow. By 2025, they’ll strengthen 70-75% of the workforce and recognize top positions, thus making it crucial for organizations to restructure and enforce millennial employment trends, to sail smoothly with this demographic shift.
Millennials have grown up witnessing the boom in the technology and digital era. They know the customers; they know the resources and they are skilled with all the know-how to generate quality-driven results. But then again, millennials are also entitled to a very different work culture than that has been going on since time immemorial. Accustomed more to a pro-work-life balance, integrity rather than competition-driven, flexible and leadership-based culture, they believe in teamwork rather than one-upmanship. Hence, adapting to the millennial employment trends is the need of the hour.
Several companies are capitalizing on millennial employment trends and employee engagement programs to stay ahead of the curve. Autonomy culture is thriving. Team leaders are green-lighting flexible working spaces and hours, and focusing more on outputs rather than means of input. Smarter companies are bending austerity to increase efficiency. Working from home, freelance or contractual projects have witnessed a boost in the last few years. Also, millennials are quick, innovative and productive at the same time and being tech-savvy only adds another feather to their hats. Skilled to make the best use of technology, they have successfully revolutionized workplaces and introduced organization to the culture of working from anywhere in the globe. This only means, the millennial employees are bringing about a change in the work culture that is here to stay. Here are the top five millennial employment trends that you must look out for in 2020.
You might also be interested to read: ‘Millennials Will Constantly Challenge An Organization’s Belief System’ – Sudheesh Venkatesh, Chief People Officer of Azim Premji Foundation
1. Transparency
Millennials like to stay informed on everything that’s happening around them. They keep themselves up-to-date with trends to connect with the customers. Hence, for them, transparency is very important, especially when it comes to workspaces too. Transparent leaders tend to have a deeper bond with millennial workers than others. It increases trust, makes employees feel a part of the circle and motivates them to strive and give their best for the organization. The fluidity of information builds loyalty and prevents toxic environments and team politics in the long run. Hence, the reason why millennials are demanding more transparency at workplaces, in between teams, management and executives to be well-informed about the changes if there are any.
2. ‘Work Is Fun’ environment
Millennials are choosing flexibility over compensation these days. They yearn for workspaces that understands their work-life balance mantra. They would rather grow in an environment with an autonomous culture than being crippled in a 9 to 5 environment. Several organizations are loosening the control to lure millennial workers. More fun activities have been included in the work culture – appreciation programs, workshops for growth and learning are invested in to make workspaces more millennial-friendly. Fun Fridays, annual parties and birthdays have become a part of the work culture today. Besides this, organizations that are on par with the latest millennial employment trends are encouraging a fun, social and casual environment at work that has inadvertently led to increased productivity and growth in businesses. Millennials are choosing to work at the organizations that indulge in social and interpersonal activities rather than only productivity.
3. Benefits and gratification
Benefits and gratifications, be it in the form of appraisals, certificates or a simple speech is all the motivation millennials seek. When it comes to choosing an organization, every employee expects perks like health insurance, incentives, annual leaves, recreational facilities, etc., as a compensation for the time and talent they are going to invest in the company. For example – Google India practices flexible working hours, gym, sleeping pods and also celebrates ‘bring your child to work’ day annually. Similarly, Marriott Hotels offer several health benefits, Intuit Technology provides career breaks and Wipro gives away paid holidays. Several more organizations are gradually adapting to the millennial employment trends to increase employee satisfaction. As for gratification, more organizations are now opting for half-yearly appraisals to please the gen-next. Also, offering incentives to appreciate work and determination is one of the many ways practiced by companies to increase employee satisfaction and boost healthy competition.
4. Teamwork over one-upmanship
Millennials like to talk and share ideas. They are open to criticism and want to make an impact as a team rather than be pitted against each other. They seek a work environment that promotes healthy interactions and competitions. It promotes growth and helps increase team bonding and learning. Organizations that encourage teamwork and interpersonal communication sessions have witnessed more employee retention in the last few years. Other than teamwork, one of the most important millennial employment trends has to be that the gen-next demographic cohorts like to be leaders. Give them the authority to perform and they will strive to outshine.
5. Count experiences, not gaps
Millennials want employers to focus more on experiences, skills and projects rather than the gap years on the resume. The generation now loves to travel, take a year off to study or learn a hobby. However, that does not qualify them for not being up-to-date with the current trends. Millennials are a tech-savvy generation that has grown up during the digital age and is successfully debunking myths about resume gaps. Keeping up with the millennial employment trends, organizations are now supporting gaps and even encouraging people to step out and learn new experiences. They are setting up workshops, pan-global companies are proposing employee swaps, while some are sponsoring education to increase employee satisfaction too.
You might also be interested to read: ‘Millennials And Digital Natives Are Very Different From The Past Generations’ – Aarif Aziz, CHRO, Diageo India
Those are the top five millennial employment trends to look forward to in 2020. Millennials workers are changing the way businesses work. They engage in less but productive hours, they prefer working from remote places, emails over face-to-face communications and casuals over formals. The work environments are changing, offices are loosening up the ties and giving more weightage to employee benefits to maintain a positive retention graph. Several organizations are now enforcing employee engagement strategies as well. Considering the consumers are millennials too and most of the organizations are functioning in millennial markets, these adjustments to adopt the millennial way of working will only help the companies increase productivity over time.
References:
- 5 Ways Millennials Are Changing the Workplace
- 12 Ways Company Culture Will Change as More Millennials Advance in the Workplace
- 5 Ways Millennials Are Changing How Businesses Do It by Larry Alton on Oct 5, 2017
- Top 5 employment trends of 2020 that will affect Millennials,Oct 21, 2019
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