Win The Talent War: Get Synced With Gen Y

My generation basically has you over a barrel. You need to hire us, but we won’t work for you or remain loyal if you don’t give us what we want. This might sound harsh, but it’s a fact. The traditional workplace is out of tune with the way we want to live.

My generation basically has you over a barrel. You need to hire us, but we won’t work for you or remain loyal if you don’t give us what we want. This might sound harsh, but it’s a fact. The traditional workplace is out of tune with the way we want to live.

Conquer Millennials in the talent war

Gen Y will make up 75% of the workforce by 2025 according to a BPW Foundations study. If you want your business to be around in the next 20 years, you need us. And you want the best of us. You are competing in a talent war.

If you lose the talent war, Millennials will be working for your competition. Here’s how to win:

Understand flexibility

Since you are flexible enough to be strapped to that proverbial barrel, use that flexibility to your advantage.

I’m very willing to work long hours, but as I produce for you, I want some say in where I do it. My workplace looks like my home office, Caribou Coffee, the train. I don’t want to fight rush hour traffic to get to the bank when I could be working from my couch all afternoon.

Not sure how to do it? Check out these great suggestions to create a flexible work environment that all generations will be comfortable with.

Empower Millennials

Gen Y wants to feel like they are contributing in a meaningful way to the success of the organization.

Ask us what we think. Listen to us. Use our ideas. I promise, we have some great ones and can give you a different perspective. Take us seriously and collaborate with us.

Millennials get a lot of bad press for their feelings of entitlement, but Mark Healy of Satov Consultants  knows it’s more about empowerment. Healy suggests that creating more project-based work that will give Millennials a stage and an end will help them feel more empowered. It also means giving them more control over when and how they do their work.

Make the workplace fun

Yep, we want it all. We want to be taken seriously and encouraged to have fun. Gen Y has spoken, and we want Facebook at work. Eighty-nine percent of young professionals have a Facebook account, and one-third of them want to check it at least five times a day. That means they want to check it at work.

Allowing and encouraging downtime on social media during the workday has actually been shown to increase productivity; just another good reason for you to give us what we want.

Get in sync with Gen Y

Get in Sync with Gen Y; make your workplace flexible, empowering and fun.

Are you winning the talent war? What are you doing to entice Generation Y to your workplace?