More than half of millennials are disengaged at work. This results in lower productivity and higher turnover. In other words, boosting millennial employee retention should definitely be on your to-do list.
In many countries, wages haven’t kept up with the rate of inflation, leaving millennials in the prime of their working lives with little hope of ever buying a house. Almost half live paycheck to paycheck, despite now being in their 30s and 40s.
Because of these anxieties, pay is the main reason millennials changed jobs in the last two years.
But they still prioritize things like work-life balance and growth opportunities alongside pay.
So these things are still important to focus on when hiring this huge demographic.
Saying that your benefits make up for not paying people at the market rate isn’t good enough. Perks like foosball tables aren’t what candidates want. In the current economy, they’re barely on anyone’s radars anymore.
In an increasingly fractured world, we’re craving financial security and connection.
So, how can you engage the largest working demographic and improve millennial employee retention?
Offer a flexible working environment
84% of millennials want to work remotely. It provides flexibility and more time to spend reading, relaxing, or connecting with loved ones.
Workplace flexibility could involve offering full-time remote options, hybrid work options, or allowing employees to work the hours they choose so long as they get their work done.
Enabling team members to work their schedule around their life can do wonders for millennial employee retention.
Support their career growth
Just 24% of millennials are satisfied with their career progress. I can’t say I’m surprised. I’m a millennial myself and many of my friends who choose to stay in traditional employment find it hard to get up the ladder and feel stuck in their current roles.
But employees want career progression. They want to know that their employer supports their growth, too.
How can you support your employees’ career trajectory?
Some options:
- Courses to develop new skills
- Come up with a progression plan with them
- Help them move into a new department
You could also ask employees how they’d like to progress during their onboarding or performance reviews.
To maximize millennial employee retention, provide options, too. Team members may not know what’s available to them.
Give them a purpose
In a world where we can feel helpless, millennials want a way to add purpose back into their lives. It’s no longer enough to work to pay the bills. That work has to mean something, too.
How can you give team members a greater purpose?
Is it offering them more responsibilities?
Helping them choose which charity you’ll support?
Getting them to run an employee group to support their colleagues?
The answer will probably be different for every employee. One way you can get answers is to ask them with an employee feedback survey.
Then, you can collect answers from employees who want to work toward the same thing, connect them, and they can work together toward their mutual goal.
Workrowd can help you send feedback surveys and get more from them. That way, you have more time to take action on millennial employee retention based on the results.
Make them feel like they belong
Employee groups are a great way to connect team members with colleagues who share things in common with them.
Whether they connect over their demographics, favorite TV shows, career goals, or something else, it’s a way to foster a sense of belonging in the workplace.
This is key to supporting employees’ mental health and avoiding common health issues like burnout.
Organizing employee groups can be a challenge, but with Workrowd, it’s a breeze. Everything employees need to connect with their colleagues is in one place. That way, you can increase millennial employee retention without the stress.
Prioritize mental health
Too many people I know have burned out because of work.
Whether that’s because they worked too hard to hit deadlines, or because they were neurodivergent and desperately trying to mask to fit in, the results are the same.
No energy, passion, or productivity.
Employers need to look after their employees. Not only should employees feel comfortable being themselves in the workplace, but employers need to support their mental health so that they don’t burn out.
Watch out for your top employees who often stay late or log into their laptop at weird hours. They may love what they do, but they’re the ones most likely to burn out. They can’t maintain that level of productivity forever. And the longer they try to, the greater their risk of burning out.
Burned out team members are more likely to leave, impacting millennial employee retention.
Actually be inclusive
Being an inclusive business is about more than education; it’s also about action. It’s about embracing employees’ differences and appreciating the strengths that come with them. Moreover, it’s about treating people fairly regardless of their backgrounds. They all contribute toward your business, after all.
Millennials are a diverse bunch. And most of us embrace that diversity. Which means we also want our employers to.
It’s not enough to not be racist; employers should be actively anti-racist. Working hard to stamp out microaggressions in the workplace.
Working hard to not just tell the world that they’re inclusive, but to show it. Authenticity is crucial when it comes to millennial employee retention.
Conclusion
To boost millennial employee retention, you need to understand their priorities. That means paying them what they’re worth while remembering that it’s about more than just a paycheck—it’s also about making a difference in the world.
To increase your millennial employee retention, giving them somewhere they can connect with their coworkers and share their feedback is important. That’s where Workrowd comes in.
Using our tools, you can help employees engage with colleagues from across your organization, share what matters to them, keep up with what’s going on within the business, and track outcomes with automated analytics.
To find out how we can partner to benefit your business, visit us online or send us a note at hello@workrowd.com to schedule a demo.
