When you hear the words millennial and work together, you may instantly think about the ways millennials will try to get out of work. You may have a negative connotation towards millennials that skews your idea of how their work ethic is.
We need to break this mindset. Millennials are not lazy. They are not looking for ways to get out of work, well… any more than you or I would. And they’re not looking to do the least amount of work to get paid.
Photo by Helena Lopes
These are some of the big misconceptions about millennials. They’re also wrong.
Getting Millennials To Work
You may be wondering how this can be. How can millennials really want to work when the media has told us that they don’t? That’s a good question.
The truth is the media has misled people about the work ethic of millennials. Their work ethic is as strong as yours and mine.
It may take a bit more to get them to work because they’re not driven by the desire for money and respect. Rather, three things drive millennials to work.
1. Passion:
Millennials are a passion-driven generation. They desire to seek their passion and work in said passion.
You can help get the millennials in your organization to work by connecting their passion to their work. Show them how the work they’re doing connects with their passion.
Doing this will create an unstoppable millennial workforce for your organization.
2. Flexibility:
Gone are the 40-hour work weeks. I’ve been saying this for years now.
Millennials understand this. Many of the older generations do not.
With smartphones, laptops, VPN connections, and more the workday doesn’t begin at 8 and end at 5. No, the workforce is connected 24/7 through their devices.
Because of this, millennials are looking for flexibility in their work. Can they work from home 2 or 3 days a week? Do they even need to come into the office?
Offer flexibility to the millennials (and others) on your team and you’ll see productivity and the desire to work skyrocket.
3. Fairness:
The last thing millennials are needing to help them work hard is a sense of fairness in the workplace. They are tired of seeing people taken advantage of.
They’ve seen their parents and grandparents used and abused by their employers. Massive layoffs, immediate firings, and pensions gone have taught millennials there’s something wrong.
You can change this perception. You have the power to reinvigorate the desire of millennials to work by creating fairness in the workplace.
Question: What have you seen work to motivate the millennials in your organization? Share your strategies in the comments below.
Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.