Managing Millennials: What Gen Y Workers Want at Work

Introduction

According to Charles Volkert, no manager can create a work environment that perfectly suits every employee. This is particularly true for workers born after 1980 — commonly referred to as Generation Y, or Millennials — who often differ significantly from older workers, especially in what they expect from their employers and in their overall mentality toward work. For a manager to not only attract but also retain the best post-1980 workers, it is essential to adapt benefits and formulate a motivational system that accounts for the unique preferences and characteristics of this group. Before those steps can be taken, however, it is crucial to first understand Generation Y employees in detail (Volkert, 1).

What Generation Y Workers Want

According to Robert Half's 2015 white paper, The Changing Face of the Legal Industry, Generation Y employees value independence and positive reinforcement in their work, and prefer environments that are informal and engaging. Because these young people grew up during the technological boom of the 1990s — a period characterized by the rapid adoption of personal computers — they tend to be highly technologically competent (Volkert, 2). Millennials have also come of age in a world where the internet has made information widely and instantly available. This background, combined with a strong drive for creativity, produces employees who are unwilling to perform the same repetitive tasks day after day. Such workers are constantly seeking new, challenging problems that require creative thinking to solve (Gilbert, 4).

These perspectives are echoed by Generation Y worker and researcher Tamara Erickson, who in a 2009 article acknowledged that she and her peers expected more opportunities to pursue their own ideas and assumed that managers would already understand that the traditional workplace model was evolving (Erickson, 15). Researcher Leigh Buchanan, in her work Meet the Millennials, adds that one of the defining characteristics of Generation Y is that, beyond technological proficiency, these employees are motivated to do well by doing good. For example, Buchanan reports that 70% of the Millennials surveyed identified civic engagement and giving back to the community as among their highest personal priorities.

According to research conducted by Yahoo! HotJobs and Robert Half Legal, published in What Millennial Workers Want: How to Attract and Retain Gen Y Employees, Millennials are a pragmatic group. When evaluating job opportunities, they prioritize room for career growth, competitive salaries, and strong benefits before considering other factors. The same research indicates that employers recruiting young workers should prioritize providing consistent feedback and close supervision. As Jay Gilbert notes, not only is feedback important — the manner in which it is delivered matters equally. In her piece "Don't Be So Touchy! The Secret to Giving Feedback to Millennials," Joanne Sujansky argues that effective feedback must be both clear and specific (Sujansky, 3–20).

Another notable trait of Generation Y employees is their readiness to pursue better opportunities elsewhere. The primary factors that would draw a Millennial to a competing firm include better pay and benefits, more interesting work, and greater opportunities for professional advancement (Volkert, 2).

Conclusion

Managers may find it somewhat challenging to effectively attract and retain Generation Y employees, but once they understand what these employees want, they can formulate strategies to attract and inspire them to be productive within their organizations. By recognizing the distinct values, expectations, and motivations that define this generation, employers can build workplace cultures and recruitment approaches that bring out the best in Millennial workers (Volkert, 9–11).