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Bloom said he worked with one of the HR executives to craft a multi-pronged approach aimed at “showing the employees how critical they were to its success; offering more training and advancement opportunities tailored to their strengths; and connecting their personal values to their jobs and customers.”
Turnover dropped more than 50 percent, while employee satisfaction ratings greatly improved.
Bloom added that execution of the plan proved to be the difficult aspect, requiring a steadfast dedication on the part of company leadership. He concluded that three main factors led to optimal performance and a sense of well-being:
The ability to learn, grow and be challenged by our work.
High levels of engagement, in part driven by the use of
personal strengths.
A work environment that allows us to be authentic and enact our core values.
“If accompanied by a reasonable paycheck and good folks to work with, this likely represents what most of us want and need from work,” he said.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, workers today remain at a job for an average of 4.4 years; expectations among millennials are even lower, with 91 percent of people born between 1977 and 1997 expecting to stay in their current job for less than three years. Because they see a job as a temporary arrangement rather than a long-term commitment, millennials of- ten behave like free agents, demonstrating little apparent loyalty to their employers.
“Baby boomers typically worked four jobs, Generation X’ers seven jobs, millennials 17 jobs, and the next generation will have seven jobs at a time,” said Tom Darrow, (ACCT ’87), the chair- man of the board at the Society of Human Resource Management, which studies the future of the workplace. “That’s a lot of job turnover, so there’s a whole shift out there in the mindset. Companies that want to go out and hire somebody for 40 years? That’s not going to happen. That doesn’t work for the company, and it doesn’t work for the employees.”
Why are millennials so quick to jump ship for another company?
According to Carol Phillips, the president of the marketing firm Brand Amplitude and an adjunct marketing instructor at Mendoza, younger workers are looking for more in an employer than just a paycheck. “Millennials want honesty and they want authenticity, and when they choose an employer they’re choosing a brand that’s going to say something about themselves. They’re looking for more meaning from their work. They’re looking for a company that aligns with their values, that doesn’t just say the right thing, but does it. And if they don’t get that, they’ll leave.”
One of the most characteristic traits of millennials, researchers
have found, is their idealism. Whether it’s traveling to Africa to work for an NGO or volunteering on a political campaign, today’s young people want to make the world a better place. But rather than rebelling against corporations, the way many baby boomers and Generation X’ers did (think The Graduate, Dilbert and Office Space), millennials see companies as a potential force for good.
In her new book, Engaging Millennials for Ethical Leadership, Jessica McManus Warnell, management associate teaching professor, tries to combat some of the negative stereotypes about the generation. “My thesis is that some of their tendencies can actually contribute to more ethical organizations,” she said. “We hear in the media a lot of lamenting about their being narcissistic, or lazy, or always on their smartphones. But that really runs counter to what I see in the classroom and what we see with the companies we work with at Notre Dame. They’re really highly motivated, idealistic.”
McManus said that many of the millennials’ attitudes toward work were shaped by the formative events of their youth. “These young people came up in the post-Enron, post-financial crisis era. They’ve seen the consequences of business done unethically.”
One way employers can attract millennials, according to Phillips and McManus, is to clearly communicate their core values. One of the most talked-about ads in this year’s Super Bowl was the “Throws Like a Girl” spot for Always feminine hygiene products. Citing research showing that girls’ confidence plummets during puberty, the ad encouraged a more positive female self-image. Phillips believes the ad was directed as much toward current and future employees of Procter and Gamble, which owns the Always brand, as it was toward its customers.
“That was about all about their employees. If you’re going to create a powerful brand, you’ve got to reach all your stakeholder groups. Employees are a target audience, and advertising has to work with them because if it doesn’t, nothing else will work,” said Phillips. “If you work on the Always brand, how did you feel after the ad? Pretty great. Who would have ever thought you’d run an Always ad during the Super Bowl? But it was a big hit. You have to inspire your employees if you want to inspire your customers.”
Perhaps the most readily apparent characteristic of millennials is their comfort with technology. Having grown up with computers, members of this generation adapt easily to new innovations, and spend a significant amount of their time on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. A 2005 Kaiser Foundation study showed that millennials spend an average of 6.5 hours a day communicating with their peers online or with their phones, and clock an extraordinary 8.3 hours of media exposure.
Rather than fight millennials’ technophilia by restricting Internet usage, many companies have embraced social media as another platform for productive creativity. “Technology is the water in which they swim. They don’t know anything else,” McManus said. “Companies need to utilize social media internally so that their employees can communicate and develop their ideas.”
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