If you are a growing company competing for top talent, it’s likely that you are experiencing 20–25% turnover from your millennial talent. You spend thousands to hire and train and then 12–15 months into the job they leave for greener pastures.
You’ve realized it’s time to invest in keeping this key talent past the 12–15 month drop off.
First, you see just how much more they produce (2–5x more) years 3, 4 and 5 at your company. Second, the expense of continually hiring new replacements costs your company important dollars and holds you back from the growth you know you can achieve.
Where do you start? How do you go about keeping your top talent?
Here are 4 simple tactics to get started:
#1. Make a concerted effort to LISTEN to the millennial talent. Millennials provide another perspective and way to view the world that can only enhance creativity and diversity of thoughts among a team. The simplest, but often missed action is to show millennials you care and understand them by speaking their language. Spend time thinking about what’s important to your employees. Go out and talk to your people, ask them and listen to what they have to say.
#2. Embrace an intrapreneurial culture. Most millennials have a desire to be their own boss. This doesn’t strictly mean they want to work for themselves. It means they want autonomy in how they accomplish their work. Without it, an employee’s drive can be stifled. Challenge your employees to take on new projects, execute on the new ideas they are constantly bringing to you and allow them to learn and grow by making mistakes. It can be scary to give freedom like this, it takes trust. You’ll quickly begin to see your people more committed and engaged in their work because they now have a sense of ownership.
#3. Make time for the ‘soft’ stuff. Commit to the growth of your millennials by showing interest in their lives and their future. Take 30-minutes to grab coffee/lunch to simply learn about about your employee. What does she want for herself? Where does she want to grow? How can you help her get there? Taking the time to think about the growth of your employees will go a long way in connecting you with your employee and building more loyalty and dedication. Providing resources like a mentor or coach can also have a huge return on the investment of time and or money.
#4. Communicate your organization’s purpose and how it makes the world a better place. Create a shared purpose to bring your employees together. Building structure and setting goals gives people targets to move towards but it’s not the inspiration that will keep millennials excited about working for you. Make sure to have an answer to the question, why should I care to join your company and to do my best work with you? It’s just as important to have a value proposition for your current and future employees as it is to have one for your customers.
Ultimately, successful organizations must acknowledge how the millennial generation IS different.
Approach them as valuable assets to your organization, embrace their perspectives, help them grow alongside you and connect back to your organizations’ purpose and you will see the impact immediately.
Aaron is the Founder and CEO of Raise The Bar, a firm focused on helping companies retain their millennial talent.
Originally published at www.raisebar.co on March 2, 2017.
Originally published at medium.com