Circle of changeDO YOU HAVE A RETENTION PROBLEM WITH MILLENNIAL WORKERS? – HERE ARE THREE SOLID RETENTION STRATEGIES FOR LEADERS OF MILENNIALS!

DO YOU HAVE A RETENTION PROBLEM WITH MILLENNIAL WORKERS? – HERE ARE THREE SOLID RETENTION STRATEGIES FOR LEADERS OF MILENNIALS!

So you just hired a bunch of millennials? What can you do to ensure they stay with your company past a few months? According to various researchers on this subject matter, employers have found it very difficult to retain Millennial workers and the U.S. Department of Labor discovered that from 2004 to 2014 individuals between the ages of 20 and 24 stayed with an organization for 1.3 years while the average employee between the ages of 25 and 34 stayed with an organization between 2.9 and 3.2 years. Although these numbers have gotten better over the past two years, the U.S Department of Labor stated in January of 2016 that individuals between the ages of 18-35 years of age had an average tenure of 1.6 years per job. In addition to these studies, other experts on this subject matter have sought to discover why the turnover rate is so much higher with Millennial workers because the cost of turnover can be more than 150% of a lost employee’s annual salary.

Subsequently, despite these retention challenges with the Millennial Generation, many companies have hired a variety of consultants to help individuals enhance recruiting efforts and develop a deeper understanding about the different characteristics of the Millennial Generation without ever dealing with the real problem which is: RETENTION. Unfortunately, because companies and organizations have not fully solved this retention issue with Millennial workers, Lars Schmidt, a contributing author for Forbes Magazine states that 32% of global talent leaders view retention as a top priority in 2017 and that an over-emphasis on talent attraction and hiring without equal emphasis on development and retention will create problems for companies in the new year. Moreover, in another study done by Future Workplace and Kronos found that 87% of employers stated retaining employees will be a top priority in 2017.

Ultimately, although certain researchers have concluded that Millennials voluntary decide to leave an organization because of compensation, opportunities to learn new skills, advancement, relationship with management, work–life balance, and job satisfaction, throughout the past year, I have found three specific things that can help employers increase engagement and retention with Millennial workers.

The first retention strategy that can help employers increase retention with millennial workers is creating an organizational culture that is Millennial Friendly. An organizational friendly culture is an organization that work-life balance, supports charitable causes, believes in ethical practices, creates a fun social workplace setting, provides personal growth for individuals within their company or organization, offers mentorship opportunities and is current with technology trends.

The second retention strategy that can help employers increase retention with millennial workers is making sure that they are creating the proper job alignment with their millennial employees. Instead of just hiring someone for the job, be sure that the attitude, values, passion, motivation, personality, and intentions of the millennial worker are aligned well with the responsibilities and expectations of the position. The main reason this is so important is because studies have revealed that some Millennial workers decide to leave an organization because of job satisfaction, opportunities to learn new skills, challenging work, and the absence of promotion. Subsequently, all of these challenges can be solved with the right culture and job alignment within the company or organization.

Finally, the third retention strategy that can assist employers increase millennial retention is to ensure managers of these millennial workers possess a suitable leadership style. In effect, based on my research of the Millennial Generation, although there are a variety of leadership styles, the ones that have shown to be the most effective are: Servant Leadership and Transformational Leadership Ultimately, if an organization or company’s leadership team is not effective at applying these two leadership styles, there is good chance that they will have a challenging time at retaining members of the Millennial Generation.

As you might imagine, there are so many other key components of this challenge within the workplace, but these are three specific strategies that can help managers/leaders experience greater millennial retention within the workplace.