Two-thirds of Millennials (Generation Y, born between 1981 and 1999) consider personal development one of the most important criteria when choosing an organization to work for. The opportunity to be able to take developmental steps across the board is more important than ever. In addition, it is enormously important for this target group to be able to discover their talents and be able to use them optimally, thereby fulfilling their ambitions.
The turnover of this generation is therefore much higher than it was for previous generations. There is less focus on finding a job where you want to stay for 30 years, and more on developing skills. Millennials therefore see a job more as an intermediate station, rather than an end station. They are constantly looking for how something can be done faster, better and even easier. Can't they develop enough? Then they will quickly be bored and move on to the next intermediate station. This trend will become even more important in 2020 than it already was in 2019. But how do you deal with this as an organization?
How do you deal with this as an organization?
1. Give employees the opportunity to develop.
Discuss with them how they want to fill this for themselves and ask what they need from the organization to make this a success. Growth does not always have to mean moving up the hierarchical ladder. Nowadays there is much more growth than becoming a manager. For example, you can become a specialist in a particular field, become a consultant or improve your internal processes. It is up to the organization and the HR department to facilitate this and ensure that employees are given this opportunity.
2. Give feedback and recognition
Diplomas and education have long since ceased to be the standard for salary increases or professional growth. Millennials want continuous recognition for their results. When more recognition and feedback is given, conversations between managers and employees will improve and every moment of contact is turned into an opportunity to grow, develop and learn.
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3. Give employees responsibility
Accountability is one of the most important ways to grow and develop employees. Take the example of a clothing store that belongs to a large chain. You can direct the store employees from above and tell them exactly how the window displays should look, but you can also let them do it themselves. After all, they know best what kind of crowd comes into their store and what the customer wants. See employees much more as entrepreneurs and give them autonomy and responsibility.
4. Let employees set their own goals
In many organizations, goals are still imposed by the organization. Managers determine who gets to work on what and what the associated goals are. This is not inspiring at all! Let employees set their own goals. By clearly telling them what the organizational goals are, they can adjust their personal and team goals accordingly. In this way, they see that they are making a valuable contribution to the higher purpose of the organization. Using a tooling like Treams , you can easily set personal and team goals and have continuous insight into each employee's progress.
5. Forget job profiles, steer more by talents
For years, the focus within companies was on training employee skills. Instead of looking at who had what talents, they looked at what competencies were needed to do a particular job well. All positions were given a competency profile describing this. Did you not fully meet this profile? Then you did not qualify for the position. A pity, because the people who really had knowledge of certain things were judged, for example, on the fact that they did not meet the competency 'communication skills', while they did not necessarily need this in this position. To avoid this, it is important to steer by talents. What is this employee good at, how can we maximize this and how can we ensure that this talent is expanded even further? That way, as an organization, you can continue to innovate in this rapidly changing world and keep your employees happy.