“Millennials” are those born between 1980 and 2000. By 2025 this group will make up 75% of the global workforce.
Truth #1: A millennial’s respect must truly be earned. Millennials need a reason to follow you—and a fancy title is far from being enough to earn supreme respect. We want to know how you got to your position, and more importantly, what you contribute to the business today. This was the first thing that interested me in Point Solutions, where I was told right off the bat that my manager had started in the entry level, the same position that I had applied for. When I joined the team, I realized that it wasn’t just my manager who had started that way—every single person in the company had started at the bottom and worked their way up. Not only was this concept fascinating to me, but I looked at all of my colleagues in a different light.
Truth #2: Millennials need a reason to care. Money is important, but we aren’t just here for a paycheck. We need a reason to work hard, both in the short term and long term. We need answers to our questions—and the answers need to make sense. What is the impact of the assignment I’ve been given? How will my work further organizational objectives? In the bigger picture, how does this further my overall professional goals? Why am I here other than to receive a paycheck? For a millennial, the worst possible answer to hear from a manager is “because I said so” or “because that’s your job.”
Truth #3: Millennials want to be trained and developed. We are new to the work force and value a mentor who takes us under his or her wing. We may not openly admit it, but we love tough love. We want our mentors and managers to clearly define their expectations, we want to know how we will be evaluated, and we want to be coached through our mistakes. If we don’t feel like we are learning and developing on a daily basis, we get bored quickly and move on to the next thing.
Truth #4: Millennials want to work in a collaborative, creative environment, where our ideas matter. Millennials prefer to work in an environment where everyone—regardless of age, experience or time at the company—is free to contribute ideas. We don’t want to work for a company that crushes our creativity, underutilizes our skillsets, or doesn’t value our opinions. My biggest fear as a recent college graduate was that I would be running around delivering coffee and making photocopies, and that this would be the extent of my contribution until I had paid my dues for “x” number of years. At Point Solutions, my hard work accelerated me into a position where I had just as much responsibility and input as my elders who had been in the workforce twice or three times as long.
Truth #5: Millennials want to be leaders – if there’s no opportunity to move up, we are out the door. We want careers, not jobs. We need to see where our careers are going, and we want to know exactly what we have to do to get there. We are not fans of ambiguity. If we don’t think there is room for growth or the potential for a leadership role within a company, we are not likely to stick around.
Post by L. Levy with thanks to http://bit.ly/1ywQg47, http://bit.ly/1rtZM4Q, http://bit.ly/1qwmPK7, http://bit.ly/10ebd4w, http://elitedai.ly/1woBXtx
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