The Best Ways To Engage Millennials At Work

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As of 2019, millennials are roughly between the ages of 23 and 37. Many millennial employees are nearing their late 30s and likely have good work experience and instincts. Even younger millennials are pretty business-savvy as they’re used to reading about their field and Googling questions to make sure they’re informed. With these traits in their favor, millennials can be a good second set of eyes to give you another point of view on a decision or project brief. Get their opinions or help with decision-making to broaden your perspective and to help raise buy-in.

Give regular feedback.

In the era of ghosting and impersonal communication, many professional millennials yearn for up-to-date information on where they stand. Whether this a one-on-one, review or just feedback in general, they want to know their status at work. The approval of supervisors can mean a lot to this demographic. Millennials tend to work hard to meet and even exceed their professional goals. Your job in this process is to let them know when they are on track, ahead, or behind. No hand-holding needed: just don’t let them be in the dark about progress and they will be happy for the engagement.

Stick to a predictable review process.

Along with being available for regular feedback and check-ins, millennial employees count on a predictable review process for a few reasons. Millennials want the opportunity to shine, and that’s not possible if they don’t have face time with leadership, especially supervisors who may not be involved in their regular projects. If their job doesn’t require even semi-frequent check-ins, regular feedback likely won’t be enough to let them know how they’re performing. Plus, following a set schedule and using a standardized system for assessment takes away any chance of ambiguity or uncertainty.

Connect with their values.

Millennials want to feel like they’re doing something to improve their community. This drive to “save the world” even in small ways is because they grew up learning to take care of the environment and people around us. Companies can drive engagement by giving millennials a way to get involved with company initiatives that fit their values. That could be coordinating off-site events and team-building for a purpose. Get millennials engaged in internal campaigns like adopting a comprehensive recycling strategy, or finding vendors who are local or minority-owned. Sustainable initiatives can be a big hit among this crowd while also saving money. Think about how you can connect things like lowering shipping costs with lighter packaging or using recycled materials.

Give them a challenging goal.

Most millennials want to feel valued and adept at their jobs. It’s important to be proud of what you do and feel like you’re making an important contribution. The best way to attain that fulfillment is to reach your goals. The nice thing about setting challenging goals to engage your millennial employees is that you also get to see them make amazing progress. You also get to watch them develop skills that are important to their role on your team. Instead of telling someone to wing it or figure it out. Management can engage employees by working together to set up the challenge. The employee will be tasked with the dirty work of getting down to business and making it happen.

Make them the lead on a project or initiative.

You might find that you get better engagement out of younger employees by putting them in charge of something. Many millennials want the chance to show what they’re made of. What better way to do that than to take responsibility for something? You’ll never know what your people are made of if they don’t occasionally get to prove their abilities. That doesn’t mean you have to take a big risk, but let them know what their responsibility is. Why could their performance mean a lot for their reputation or respect? You will likely be surprised.

Offer career and personal development opportunities.

With millennials poised to make up 75% of the workforce by 2020, helping prepare them to take over is critical to your company’s success. Good news, millennials want to do the kind of professional development that will make them ready! As employees start to think about a retirement plan, you don’t want to let all of that experience and prowess walk out the door. Consider offering development for millennial employees. This can help keep them engaged and strengthen the company’s transition from one generation of leaders to another. Don’t forget about personal development opportunities, too. Plenty of organizations can partner with you to offer workshops on life management or volunteer opportunities. People will find workshops and volunteer opportunities personally valuable. These opportunities will help them be better employees even if they’re not working directly on building a career skill.

Keep open communication.

Finally, the biggest thing you can do to keep millennials engaged is, communicate. This generation might be guilty of relying on emojis at times, but they hate guessing and value honesty. Find ways to facilitate conversations both big picture planning and everyday updates and time for open feedback.

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