Tips for ‘Keeping the Millennials’ in the Workforce

The book Keeping the Millennials examines why Millennials/Generation Y are who we are in the workforce, and how managers should adapt to capitalize on their skills. A few months ago, I interviewed the book’s co-author Joanne Sujansky, founder and CEO of KEYGroup, an international consulting firm, for an article about how Generation Y saves for retirement. In this post I’m sharing some of her other insights about Millennials in the workforce.

Enthusiasm for work: It's intriguing how many of the trademark Millennial traits could be seen as either good or bad. For instance, while Sujansky says Millennials are very enthusiastic about work, they can also be a little impatient. “We know that they are a bit impatient — impatient to see their careers move quickly — even impatient when they work around other people that work a little more slowly than they do,” Sujansky says. Millennials are eager to progress and be acknowledged; we want all our hard work to unfold into a possible promotion or acknowledgement.

So the good news seems to be that Millennials care about work—a “healthy enthusiasm,” Sujansky says, to want to move up the ladder; the bad news is that might come on a little too strong sometimes.

Need for praise: "While they are impatient for things to happen, they also want to hear from you some feedback that they are doing well,” Sujansky says about Millennials. That frequent need for feedback might be annoying to managers, but it’s also a sign that if something is not done right, Millennials want to do it better.

Knowledgeable and worldly: "The Millennial group comes to the workforce more educated than any other group," says Sujansky. This is the generation of afterschool programs and studying abroad. "They have these really rich lives that they bring to the workforce. It should be acknowledged how rich of a background it is. Instead the older worker has the tendency to say 'Hey, you don't have work experience.'”

Good multi-taskers: The stereotypical Millennial is texting away in the back of a meeting, and that might be understandably offensive to some people. Sujansky says Millennials are just good at multi-tasking, and that’s how they are used to living. That can be good, but it can also be viewed as not paying attention to work as it needs to be paid. Sujansky suggests finding a happy medium by letting expectations be known.

Hunting for flexibility: Millennials saw their parents burn out and don't want to be in the same situation, Sujansky says. Baby Boomers really started the move for making changes in the workforce to create more work/life balance, such as flex time and parental leave. "Maybe [Millennials] can succeed in making some of the changes that we as Boomers tried,” Sujansky says.

However, the phrase “flexible work environment” doesn’t always mean the same thing to different generations. Sujansky suggests that managers actually provide examples for what that means to clarify the expectations.

Willingness to leave: Not only are Millennials looking for a flexible work environment, but we have a flexible mindset about work. These are the kids of Boomer parents who told their kids they could do anything, Sujansky points out. "They came with a lot of self-confidence, but they came a little bit dependent." Pair that with our accessibility to technology, and we are the generation that calls home all the time. We might have had the opportunity to travel overseas, but we also aren’t afraid to crash in our parents’ basement. Parents are a part of the evaluation process in jobs. Because of that confidence, Millennials are willing to leave a job we don’t like and change jobs about every 18 months, according to Sujansky.

All of this, of course, is generalization. "People take these traits that are common to many and think they are common to everyone,” Sujansky says. But that doesn't mean we should discount the need to be aware of the commonalities among those entering the workforce. "If we can't keep them on board, how are we going to have people on board to take leadership?," Sujansky adds.

And don’t think Millennials won’t leave. They might go start their own businesses. If they don’t like what they see "they will jump off the corporate train," Sujansky says.