Reaching Millennials in the Workforce
Date Posted: January 14, 2019
Posted In: Ideas, Workforce,
From AGCMO: by Monica Pitts, Owner, MayeCreate Design
When I ask leaders of construction companies about their business challenges, they almost unanimously state it’s hard to find the right people to hire for the right seats on the bus. And in most cases, they feel the cause of that challenge is the Millennial generation.
If you’re a big reputable construction company, you probably don’t have a hard time finding work. Your good name and past experience precedes you. If that’s the case, you likely haven’t been forced through the same marketing and communications revolution faced by most small or business-to-consumer companies.
The American workforce is populated by four generations for first time in history, 50% of which are Millennials. Now, B2B companies are faced with hiring the very same Millennials that toothpaste and auto manufacturers have been marketing to for the past two decades. The hiring challenges faced by B2B companies are the same as the marketing woes of the B2C – how to reach the unreachable Millennial — I advocate the solutions are the same as well.
Before I go all expert on the ways to pave the way to a more comfortable and successful hiring process for Millennials, it’s important to look first at our attitude towards Millennials. Let’s be real, this is the generation managers love to hate.
You might be a Boomer, born 1946-1964, or part of Generation X, born 1965-1980. You’re likely a manager who has literally raised Millennials both in your home and through the ranks of the workforce. Admittedly, you’ve had more life experience and were raised in a different time, which makes it hard to communicate and bridge the gap. It’s not easy to walk in another’s shoes, but let’s give it a try — the discerning Millennial will know quickly if you secretly hate their guts. Let’s look at them from a distance and observe instead of judging.
The Essential Millennial
Millennials were born between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s, and right now, their average age is 30. They have a strong emphasis on work-life balance. They’re less conforming and more casual and picky about their workplace standards.
This generation values control over their own destiny.
When they come into your workplace, you hear, “I’ve got a really great idea to fix this,” and, “When can I move up?” or, “What’s in it for me?”
This often-called “selfie generation” was mostly raised by Boomers. Older Boomers, born 1946-1964, are the people who lived through the Civil Rights Movement and later helped push women’s rights in the 60s and 70s. They’re independent thinkers and therefore made it a point to raise their children to think for themselves and tried to give them more than they had when they were raised. They wanted their children to receive attention and time. They wanted them to feel loved, to build their self-esteem. While these are great goals of many parents of Millennials, Boomers went a bit overboard and operated less like role models and more like “helicopter parents” by over watching their children and building their self-esteem through trophies and continual validation. In some cases, this treatment has led to a fear of failure and dependence, while, in other cases, members of this generation came into adulthood feeling they could change the world.