Planning for Millenials

Unless you have been living in a cave, you know the millennial generation has hit the work force.  Every generation has a slightly different set of wants, needs, and goals in their jobs, and this generation is no different.  This time the changes are a little more substantial than the incremental changes we have seen in past generations.  There are a lot of articles on what the Millennials are looking for and some of the bigger changes include:

• Ability to work Remotely
• Flexible work schedule
• Regular, if not constant, feedback on their work
• Work that supports a balanced life style

Each of these can be a bigger plus for a job than salary or traditional benefits so lets look at how you can help your client or your company adjust to make these possible.

Remote Work Options

If we can be honest, then we can agree that most jobs are becoming 24/7, no matter who the employee is.  Smart phones, personal tablets, and highly available wi-fi and hotspots, make it easy to reach employees anytime and anywhere.  Virtual meetings are easy to schedule, and  easy to attend, even video conferences are a piece of cake these days.  There are still reasons for in-person meetings and coordinating schedules so a whole team can meet, but those reasons rarely extend to a 40 hour work week.  If you think your employees all have to be in the same office at the same time for their 40+ hours of work each week, then you are wasting their time.  Every job has periods where it is best (most productive) to be heads down working on tasks and focusing on getting things done.  These probably occur daily and could be done anywhere, not just in the office.

There are some people that simply do not work well remotely.  Let them come into the office every day or, if they insist on working remotely, make sure they have a big enough to-do list to force them to be productive.  For those that want to work remotely, setup some days and times they can do so.  You might want to start with allowing workers to do remote work on the train to or from work (not driving) and see how it goes.  You can shrink their core office hours to 10 A.M. to 3 P.M. so they can flex their schedules and even do some remote work each day.  The better first step is to set aside a day or two for remote work, if desired.  Maybe allow Tuesdays and Thursdays to be spent working remotely so you can allow the remote option while never being more than a day away from the ability to schedule a meeting in the office.  Remote work is the king of all the benefits I listed as it can make an employee feel far more like a partner and empower them to do their best work whenever and wherever that is for them.  It also can reduce some of the office overhead as you can have more employees sharing the same space.

Flexible Work Schedule

Similar to remote work, but a smaller step for many companies is the flexible work schedule.  The first time I had it mentioned to me, a hiring manager said I could work any 80 hours a week I wanted.  I am still not sure how much he was joking as we rarely got under 60 hours a week while I was there.  Seriously though,  Flexible work schedules are not only a great benefit, I find them to be conducive to much more productive work days.

There will be those employees that stick to traditional times (roughly 8-5), but there are also going to be the early gang and the late gang.  If you set parameters around when meetings can be scheduled as part of the flex hours (for example, no meetings can be scheduled before 9 or after 4), then you can keep people from ever having to spend all day in meetings (a 10-3 block works well so no more than 5 hours can ever be spent in meetings).  The early and late crowd also get the benefit of the "empty office" and how productive those hours can be.  If you doubt it, then come in early or stay late by an hour or two and see how much you get done with less distractions due to less people in the office.  Open up Saturdays for work as well and it will help provide a potential light office crowd day every week.  It is great to be able to come in early Saturday to get caught up after a bad week so the rest of the weekend can be enjoyed.

Regular Work Assessments

This change is more management style than anything else, but it can be pushed down into a company.  The best way to sort of force regular feedback is to have weekly status reports.  Have everyone spend 10-15 minutes once a week writing down what they did last week and what they plan on doing this week.  Managers will roll up what their team did and plans to do.  Review the status reports and make it a point to comment on an item or two each week for each of your direct reports.  Its a lot better than a review every six months as it is feedback closer to the task and it allows for incremental changes by the employee to get better each week.

Regular feedback also helps avoid losing an employee worried about the quality of their work.  I have known more than a few people that left a company thinking they were not appreciated or were not performing well enough.  This is even though their superiors and co-workers were impressed with them.  It is easy to communicate failures and criticism, but it is good for the whole team to be tasked regularly with finding something to comment on.  Sooner or later there will be nothing left to criticize and a complement is the only option.

Support a Balanced Life Style

This is a great "work is life" benefit.  Companies have started to do things like provide nurseries and exercise areas, but why do something so simple?  Instead of saying "here is an option you can utilize", find ways to help the employees utilize those benefits.  Setup times during the week where you encourage employees to get some exercise, let them form groups to walk, run, lift weights, or anything else that gets them out of the office and raises their heartbeat a little.  These times will help them get away from the desk a little and might make them more productive when they get back to their desk.  Often the best way to solve a problem, when you get stuck, is to walk away for a while.  This works for complex math, books that won't balance, and writer's block, as well as many other problems we face every day.  Encourage discussions among employees and group activities.  This will make the employees feel more like a team as well as provide avenues for them to stay healthy mentally, physically, and even emotionally.  Something as low cost as getting discounts at the local gym and entertainment spots might be enough to get the ball rolling.

Done. What Now?

Once you have taken steps to provide one or more of these benefits, make sure you bring them up during interviews and even when posting open positions.  Find some success stories with your current employees and highlight those.  Millennials may even be drawn to the ability to build how benefits like these work so advertise the works in progress during interviews and screens so your potential employees know you have their best interest at heart.  Don't wait until you have a long list of unfilled positions, start looking into some of these options today and maybe you will be able to keep more of your current employees and those future job openings will only be due to growth rather than attrition.

We at IT4recruiters.com are not Millennials, we just work that way.  Comment here or shoot us an email at info@it4recruiters.com with your favorite benefits or perks.  We want to spread the word and help make every employee a happy (and productive) employee.

Full post at IT 4 Recruiters