How to attract and accommodate millennials, according to millennials

Friday, 20 July 2018

Founder and managing director Andrew Barnes said there was no downside to introducing the four-day week.

Today's top young talent can be hard to recruit and harder to retain.

Apparently, they want ping pong tables, nap pods, and free food. They want — no, they expect — to be able to travel, research shows. They have a reputation for job-hopping, and leaving stable, traditional roles to run food trucks or do charity work. Most recently, they're said to be fuelling the cultural shift that saw the success of a company's four-day work week trial.

'The other day I had someone get in touch who works for Tesla, remotely, from New Zealand,' says Guy Ryan, CEO and founder of Inspiring Stories, a social enterprise backing young Kiwis to tackle global problems.

'This person could work for, name your local motor vehicle company, but they want to work for Tesla; a purpose-driven organisation trying to completely change the future of energy and transport in a way that's better for the planet.'

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Carina Esguerra helps coordinate workshops for the more than 250 young people involved in Inspiring Stories' Future Leaders Programme.

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In the context of a digital, borderless world, how can said local motor vehicle company hope to attract such talent, and then their loyalty?

'Purpose, culture, and flexibility,' Ryan says. He's speaking from his workplace, BizDojo, a shared office space in Wellington. Also in the room is Ryan's one-year-old son, Finn, who's quietly chewing on a mandarin segment.

Of course, not everyone is aiming for Tesla, but Ryan's point is that for millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996, or thereabouts) and the even younger Generation Z (those born from 1997), a job's appeal goes beyond its pay cheque.

While young workers believe business should consider stakeholders' interests as well as profits, their experience is of employers prioritising the bottom line, leaving them with little sense of loyalty, according to the 2018 Deloitte Millennial Survey.

Guy Ryan, former Young New Zealander of the Year, believes young people are a critical part of creating solutions to tackling today's big issues.

'My nana had maybe one job her whole life. My parents probably had a couple. People in my generation are expected to have between 20 and 30,' Ryan says.

While 'millennials are flakes' is a trite narrative, considering we're all living in what's been described as 'a golden age of bailing', there's no doubt some truth to it.

More than 40 per cent of millennials and 60 per cent of Generation Z in the Deloitte survey said they expect to leave their current employer within two years.

Considering millennials currently make up around a third the New Zealand workforce, and are set to account for the majority of it by 2020, employers have good reason to be concerned.

'I think we're seeing young people don't want to spend 20 years in a single role trying to climb a ladder in an organisation, because we live in a world of abundant opportunity,' Ryan says.

With the rise of automation, computers or artificial intelligence are expected to take over many menial tasks in large organisations. (Around a quarter of existing jobs in New Zealand are at high risk of automation by the early 2030s, the latest PricewaterhouseCoopers analysis on the subject suggests.)

What that means for traditional internship opportunities, Ryan's not sure. 'It presents new challenges and opportunities for organisations in terms of where, strategically, makes the most sense for people to put their time and energy.'

But with high levels of student debt and worsening affordability for homebuyers, this is a generation that 'does need to make a living', he adds. 'Where we can do that in a way that's purposeful and makes a difference, it's a no-brainer.'

From July 27-29, more than 1000 idealistic young people, and some clued-up elders, will attend Festival for the Future in Wellington. The event, run by Inspiring Stories, explores the issues facing younger generations and aims to inspire innovators and influencers to make a difference.

Adithi Pandit, a partner at Deloitte, helps organisations transform their business through changes to people, process and technology. She says traditional organisations aren't doing enough to engage new, young workers.

Carina Esguerra, national programme manager for Inspiring Stories' Future Leaders Programme, is among the speakers. Given her role, which involves coordinating workshops for more than 250 young people aged 17-25 across rural and provincial New Zealand, she has a good sense of what today's young people want from a workplace.

More than twice as many millennials identify as Māori, than baby boomers — 21 per cent compared to 10 per cent, according to the 2013 Census. (People can identify with more than one ethnic group.)

This is reflected in the values of those in the programme, Esguerra says.

'Some of our young people are from very Māori communities, and one of the things they come up against is how to bring Māori perspective and Māori values into Western models.'

In the lead up to the event, Inspiring Stories surveyed 250 Kiwi millennials about their views on key issues facing the country. Child poverty, and mental and physical health in an increasingly fast-paced digital world, were primary concerns. In other words: persistent social infrastructure issues outweighed big picture questions posed by technology.

The notion of 'youthful idealism' has been around far longer than millennials, but what makes this generation so determined to make a difference?

'I think it's a combination of the internet, and globalism more broadly,' says Adithi Pandit, a partner at Deloitte New Zealand.

'This is a generation living in a world no longer arguing about climate change, but arguing what to do about it. They accept there are changes we need to make from economical, social, and environmental perspectives, to have a more sustainable world,' says Pandit, who, as a 37-year-old, bridges Generation X and millennials.

And the failure from leaders and businesses to act on those global issues has left young people disappointed, and disconnected, she says. 'The underlying theme is that millennials are losing faith with business, essentially.'

The way to engage them is simple, she says: 'We have to give up some of our hold on power. We have to come up with answers together.'

She often recommends to clients a kind of 'reverse mentoring', where young people mentor, or advise, executive members, to offer a different perspective. 'That can really shake up the way organisations think and make decisions. But we're not seeing that pace of change happening enough yet.'

As an employer, she doesn't think loyalty is a lost cause, even among those who favour the gig economy — having multiple temporary, or flexible jobs. 'The best results come when we can form a long-term relationship with our employee.

'How do we create that? It's about purpose, and being able to demonstrate what outcomes, beyond being financially successful, you're actually here to achieve. Being able to communicate that and demonstrate that. And shared decision-making, so people feel like they're part of something.'