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WORK FOR YOU

W H Y M I L L E N N I A L SA R E N ’ T C H O O S I N G T O

W I S E T A I L

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Finding, recruiting, and retaining great people is the key to success in business. But when you

break it down, a lot of this talent is coming from one group—millennials.

So now the question becomes—how do you recruit, train, connect to, and retain millennials?

What makes millennials stay at their jobs? Is it money? Is it industry? Or is it something else?

We’re an LMS software company who partners with L&D professionals to deliver training to over

860,000 users. We’ve been named to Outside Magazine’s best places to work. We’re a certified

Great Place To Work. And we’ve won an Inc. 500 award for being one of the fastest growing

companies in America.

Our company is also made up of 80% millennials. And we see firsthand how inspiring companies

are winning the talent war for millennials in their industries.

Over the last five years, we’ve seen how the changing landscape of the learning and development

affects culture. Our software is based on feedback on how the brands we work with can better

deliver training to millennials. And how to power great places to work.

We work with companies who are winning the millennial talent war. And we know why millennials

are choosing them instead of competitors.

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For most millennials, they want a job that is more than a nine-to-five, punch-in, punch-out slog

to collect a paycheck. They see their job as the one thing they invest most of their life in.

And they’re right.

Millennials have caught on that we spend most of our waking life at our jobs, and they want to

make sure the place they work shares the same values they have in everyday life. They care

more about what they do, how they do it, and the impact they’re making than the number of

digits on their paychecks.

Gone are the days of an invisible executive group. Talented workers today crave a stance on

something.

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The concept of this is easy, but sometimes putting it into practice can be a bit tough.

But you don’t have to make something up and say you stand for something you actually don’t.

Dig into your organization and find your values. And make them public.

Whatever you stand for, be honest and open about it. Again, choosing to do this is easy, but

executing it is hard. But that’s what millennials want.

If you have a company-wide newsletter, recognize employees who are exemplifying your core

values. Or, if you’ve got a strong social media following, celebrate them publicly. Having some

sort of internal or external communication system to do this, and making sure incentive is there,

is a huge first step.

When conducting interviews, ask potential employees about their values and desires in a

company. And don’t be afraid to say no to someone who might have a great resume, but who

doesn’t align with your company values.

Studies have shown that most people want to work at jobs where they are helping others.

Obviously, not everyone can be a firefighter or doctor, but those aren’t the only ways people

can help others.

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Incentivize community involvement at your workplace.

Or encourage professional development among employee peers. Even helping someone else

complete a task is a huge boost to individual morale. Every company and every job has the

ability to allow their work to help others somehow. After all, that’s the essence of almost any

business.

It’s about identifying your own way and empowering your employees to do so.

Medix, a medical staffing company, did this through employee-driven philanthropy. A woman

employed through their company was robbed just before Christmas. The woman’s recruiter

quickly took action, and offices around the country donated money to help her replace her

stolen gifts for her children.

Medix had emboldened a culture to promote this type of philanthropy. They thought outside of

their direct work and empowered their own employees to help others.

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It’s amazing how often places fail to provide all of their employees with a clear path to

development.

How does an entry-level employee become a crew manager? How is C-level talent developed within

your company? If you don’t have the answers to these questions, neither do your employees.

O F M I L L E N N I A L S S A I D P E R S O N A L D E V E LO P M E N T O P P O R T U N I T I E SW E R E T H E M O S T I N F L U E N T I A L F A C T O R I N T H E I R C U R R E N T J O B .

Einstein Bagels put it a great way:

%87 O F M I L L E N N I A L S S A Y D E V E L O P M E N T I S I M P O R T A N T I N A J O B .

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“ “Our team members have a clear pathway for accessing personal development in a way that helps them take control of their own destinies.

Taking control of their own destinies.

It sounds fair. Millennials want to know exactly what they can do to be promoted, and then have

the accountability to either do those things or not.

Einstein does it through the use of their LMS. Every employee working for their company can

take control of their own training path and hit checkpoints that can further their career.

But this is also something you can identify during the recruiting process.

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If your job posting and interview process both let a potential employee know their career path,

you’ve got a huge leg up. This transparency only builds trust and excitement within a potential

employer. And it’s something a lot of places aren’t doing.

Remember, millennials are interviewing you, too.

They want to see where their lives would end up if they join your company. They want to know

they have a path to grow and develop skills.

Not only will you be helping out your employees, you’ll also be helping yourselves. Imagine

being able to clearly identify which people would make good managers and leaders. Imagine

going into your interview process with a clear notion of how you want this person to progress.

Clarity is always invaluable.

Everyone wins.

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Recognition is a powerful tool for millennials.

But giving praise is not the same as rewarding everything. It’s as simple as knowing something

is done well and then outwardly expressing it.

And it works.

The same Blackhawk Engagement Solutions survey cited above clearly lays out that recognition

is key to millennial worker happiness. And we all know a happy worker is a productive worker.

O F M I L L E N N I A L S A R E H A P P Y W I T H T H E R E C O G N I T I O N T H E Y G E T I N T H E I R J O B S .

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So what’s stopping us from praising each other for a job well done?

Ask yourself–do you like to be told you did a good job when you knock something out of the

park? Your answer is probably a yes. So, take the extra time to acknowledge the hard work of

those who work for you.

There’s a myriad of ways to do this. For some companies, this means providing structure to

facilitate both peer-to-peer and company-wide recognition messages.

It could be as simple as hand-written notes.

Or something more intricate. Some systems use enhanced social features to do this. It’s sort of

like hitting “like” on Facebook. The gratification is instant, and everyone is happy.

Whatever it is, it needs to be public, meaningful, and real. It’s impressive and it makes an impact.

Plus, being grateful is good for your health, both in and out of the workplace.

This is definitely one of the most simple, and looking at those statistics, most overlooked things

to win the talent war.

Be thankful to people who come in and interview. Let them know that they are accomplished for

even standing out enough to warrant an interview. After all, you wanted to talk to them for some

reason. So acknowledge that.

If you looked at 150 applications, let them know that they impressed you with their skills and

warranted your attention. It’s important to start that rapport immediately, and as early as the

interview process.

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O F M I L L E N N I A L S S A Y T H E Y ’ D E X P E C T T O S T A Y A TT H E I R C U R R E N T R O L E F O R L O N G E R T H A N A Y E A R .

Transparency means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

Obviously, being transparent doesn’t mean telling everyone every little thing you did during

the work day, but it does mean being open and honest about big picture goals, organizational

changes, and just general office happiness.

Having a rapport with managers is important to millennials. Gallup found that being able to talk

to their manager was a clear reason why...

%62This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to be best friends with your employees, but you

have to let them into your life a little. You have to build some trust.

Your employees have to trust that you care about their well being as humans, not just as workers.

Millennials personal lives highly influence their work lives. If things could be better in their

personal lives, sometimes their work might suffer. Building a trusting environment for a coworker

to say, “Hey, things aren’t going so hot in my everyday life. Sorry my work has been suffering,”

can pay off tenfold. And it goes both ways.

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“ “Our long term goal is to continue to keep [our] culture tight. And also

continue to keep lines of communication open. A part-time [employee]

should feel as connected to headquarters as the store manager does.

- S A S H A L U D W I G - S I E G E L , Retai l Operations Senior Associate

You’ll feel more fulfilled knowing that your employees trust you because you’re open, honest,

and transparent.

So write down some ways that your company can be more transparent as a whole, and how you

can be more transparent in your everyday work life.

You can do this in several different ways. You can poll your employees to see what they’d like

to have more transparency on and move from there. Getting employee input on that is a huge

first step.

From there, you can move to implement those suggestions. Maybe it’s a monthly newsletter, or

even a discussion board where employees can ask public questions directly to leadership teams.

Either way, that trust and transparency really drives the millennial workforce.

Bonobos, a New York-based men’s apparel company, is committing to keeping their culture

trustworthy.

With their company expanding, Bonobos needed to find a solution to close the distance between

stores, and keep an open line of communication. They did this through their LMS, but they had a

gameplan to start with. They knew opening up more locations would lead to new communication

hurdles, and they proactively acted on it.

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Why shouldn’t your job be fun?

That’s a real question! Seriously, why? You live your life just once, so would anyone put

themselves in a place where they are miserable for 40 hours per week?

It’s hard to make friends in a place you don’t enjoy being. So take some steps to ensure that

your company is a great place.

This could be writing a manifesto, having regular department outings, or just encouraging

bonding time between coworkers.

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Like it or not, fun in the workplace is here to stay. And the good news is that it might even boost

productivity.

The most important thing here, though, is to be authentic. Don’t try to patch over issues with

mandatory activities that are supposed to be fun.

There’s a bonus here, too. Your company can have serious credibility by being the awesome

place to work. When pay and benefits might be similar, it’s possible the main differentiator is

going to be whether or not your place is a great place to work.

People want to work with people they like. There’s no getting around that. Having strong social

structure in your company will drive a great product.

Work hard at identifying the needs of your employees. Be transparent with them. Let them know

how they can progress in their career. Provide a way for them to see their career development…

...and hire people based on those needs and those fits. The people you want to hire will want to

work with the people you’ve hired.

Forethought. Strategy. Patience. Commitment.

It takes a lot of work to win the talent war. There’s no denying that.

But you can do it. And you can always ask for help. Plenty of software exists out there to help

win these battles, but it all starts with buy in from the top.

It all starts with someone taking the risk, and owning the responsibility to create a great place

to work.

W E P O W E R G R E A T P L A C E S T O W O R K | H A N D - B U I L T I N B O Z E M A N , M T

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