Employee retention: Attract and retain young minds

9 Nov, 2019
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Attracting and retaining young talent is very important for companies, but this is easier said than done. According to a study conducted by Delloite, 66% of millennials plan to leave their jobs by 2020. Millennials are the major part of the global workforce and by 2025, Millennials Will Comprise Three-Quarters of the Global Workforce.

Companies and HR managers must be up to the task to attract and keep young people, as they are a considerable part of the current workforce. Their share will only grow in the coming years, which makes the task all the more important.

Millennials lack of loyalty towards Current employers

According to the survey conducted by Delloite, if given a choice, one in every four employees would quit their current job to join a new organization in the next year. This “loyalty challenge” is driven by a variety of factors. Millennials feel underutilized and believe they’re not being developed as leaders. Millennials feel that most businesses have no ambition beyond profit, and there are distinct differences in what they believe the purpose of business should be and what they perceive it to currently be. Even millannials in senior positions intend to leave their organisations relatively soon. While this holds a huge opportunity of new employers. It’s still a large number of senior talent intending to walk out of their current organisations.

Lack of Development

Even though a large number of millennials are currently in senior positions, a lot of them believe that their leadership skills are not being fully developed. In a survey in 2013, 49% of the respondents believed that their organization was doing everything they could to develop leadership skills. While in another survey in 2016, only 28% of respondents believed that their current organization are making full use of the skills they currently have to offer.

Shared Goals, Different focus

Millanials continue to express positive views of business, and their opinions regarding businesses’ motivations. However, they feel that that most businesses have no ambition beyond profit. 87% of the millennials believed that success of a business should be measured in terms of more than just its financial performance. According to millennials, to achieve long-term success businesses should put employees first. They should have a solid foundation of trust and integrity.

Why should you want to attract young talent?

New Perspective

Young employees can bring fresh perspective and a different way of thinking to your business. Most young workers are eager to learn, build their experience and apply their skills in the workforce. This enthusiasm is great for team building, productivity and workplace moral. Younger employees will also give you an advantage if you want to target the millennial market as they understand how to reach and communicate with their peers.

Developing a talented workforce

Young Graduates have little to no experience in the market. Young graduates are like a blank slate and can be trained to specifically meet the organisations needs.Young people are also used to constant learning from colleges and universities, this makes it fairly easy to train them.

Technology

Millennials have grown up around technology. They have a natural ability to adapt to new technology. Hiring young people has a positive and important impact in driving business forward in the adoption and use of new software and technology

Adaptability

When unexpected circumstances arise, younger people are better equipped to respond to sudden changeScience Daily, 2011.

While the fast pace and constantly change dynamics of modern day workplace. It is beneficial to have a workforce which can adapt to the new situations easily.

How to attract and retain young talent?

Compensations and benefits

A 2017 study by MRINetwork lists compensation and benefits as the most important aspect for millennials when considering a new job. Companies need to understand what compensation and benefits do their employees seek and create a employee benefits plan according to it.

Rewards and recognition

Employee recognition is the timely, informal or formal acknowledgement of a person’s or team’s behavior, effort or business result that supports the organization’s goals and values, and which has clearly been beyond normal expectations.

Appreciation is a fundamental human need. Employees respond to appreciation expressed through recognition of their good work because it confirms their work is valued by others. When employees and their work are valued, their satisfaction and productivity rises, and they are motivated to maintain or improve their good work. Appreciation massively improves the employees job satisfaction. satisfied employees are more likely to stick around for a long time.

Provide development opportunities

In the same study by MRINetwork, mentorship and opportunities for advancement share the second place in the list of top priorities of millennials. Young people want to develop themselves and keep advancing in their career.

If you want the best possible shot at keeping your top young employees, you need to offer them a visible ladder to reach the next step up in their careers, with all the training and mentorship that entails. If they can’t see a way to keep climbing, they’re highly likely to bail.

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