3 Ways to Retain Millennial Employees

One of the recurring phrases that gets tossed around regarding millennials in the workplace is that they are “job-hoppers.” Beyond the pure frustration of dealing with a revolving door of talent is the actual damage it can do to a company. When someone leaves an organization they leave a void that needs to be filled. Filling that void costs time, money, and energy. To have to repeat the process on an annual (or sometimes smaller) basis is exhausting to say the least. Here are some key focal points to address in your organization to make sure when you hire an outstanding employee they will stick around.

Focal Point 1: Assess the way you attract new talent.

We at InfoQuest spend a lot of time on job boards, primarily because our services are designed to help organizations who are hiring. We FREQUENTLY see postings for positions that are nothing more than:

• Description of Duties
• Description of Qualifications
• MAYBE a salary range

How can anyone get excited about that? Once upon a time those were the only things that mattered, but when you are looking to capture and retain talent in the Millennial age range you have to understand that fulfillment and being excited about the work one does are far more important than dry figures. In many cases the salaries aren’t even of importance. One way to set yourself aside in the job boards is to focus on the benefits of working at your organization. We don’t mean “benefits” as in insurance and 401k, we mean “benefits” as in how the job makes a difference, how the organization is working to improve, how the company shows it values its employees, etc. Making these types of benefits clear up front will attract more submissions who are excited to reap them!

Focal Point 2: Assess Job Readiness BEFORE the point of hire.

How many times have you accepted an application, checked references, conducted interviews, and hired someone only to find out that they weren’t exactly ready to do the job? How long did that person last? If they did last, how many resources were burned up just to bring them up to speed with training?

One way to avoid this kind of costly mistake is to make use of talent assessments such as the ones provided by TTI Success Insights. Having your available positions benchmarked and then employing the assessment on prospective new hires can give you a deep understanding of their personality, core competencies, and how it all lines up within your organization. These tools are incredibly effective in finding the best matches for your available positions.

Focal Point 3: Use Your Company Culture as a Point of Strength

Millennials love companies with a great culture. Does that mean you have to have bean bag chairs and ping pong tables scattered about your office? Absolutely not. That’s actually where some people miss the point in how they interpret millennial behavior. Having “things” will not create a great company culture. Culture has to do with the cumulative traits of the people the company hires. So find what those positive traits are and seek to find people who align with them. Is your company heavily focused on teamwork? Then it probably isn’t a good idea to hire a “lone wolf” even if their qualifications match up on paper.

So what is the best way to identify those traits? You can certainly attempt to find them in your interviewing process, but if that hasn’t been successful so far we refer back to talent assessments, as they can help give you a 360 degree view of who a candidate is and how they align with your company.