“How to Manage Millennials” may seem like the “flavor of the month,” but don’t treat this like a fad or a trend, says Maureen Crawford Hentz. Millennials will soon outnumber everyone else in the workplace, and their culture will become the dominant one.
Hentz, manager of talent acquisition for Osram Sylvania, Inc., says that savvy managers will help Millennials adapt and thrive in their mixed-generation work environment. In the process, the managers will learn some things themselves.
What’s a “Millennial”?
The Millennial generation is typically defined as those born between 1980 and 2000. Susan M. Heathfield, HR expert for About.com, offers the following characteristics of Millennials, saying that they:
—Have developed work characteristics and tendencies from doting parents, structured lives, and contact with diverse people.
—Are used to working in teams and want to make friends with people at work.
—Have a “can-do” attitude about tasks at work and look for feedback about their performance frequently—even daily.
—Want a variety of tasks and expect that they will accomplish every one of them.
—Are positive and confident, and ready to take on the world.
—Seek leadership, and even structure, from their older and managerial co-workers, but expect that you will draw out and respect their ideas.
—Seek a challenge and do not want to experience boredom.
—Are used to balancing many activities such as teams, friends, and philanthropic activities.
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—Want flexibility in scheduling and a life away from work.
—Need to see where their career is going and exactly what they need to do to get there.
—Are waiting for their next challenge (and there had better be a next challenge).
—Are connected all over the world by e-mail, instant messages, text messages, and the Internet (and thus can network right out of their current workplace if their needs are not met).
Ten Tips for Helping Millennials Adapt and Thrive
Heathfield offers the following suggestions:
1. Provide structure. For example, reports with monthly due dates, jobs with fairly regular hours, certain activities scheduled every day, meetings with agendas and minutes, goals that are clearly stated, and assessments of progress.
2. Provide leadership and guidance. Millennials want to look up to you, learn from you, and receive daily feedback from you. They want “in” on the whole picture and to know the scoop. They want and deserve your best investment of time in their success.
3. Encourage the Millennials’ self-assuredness, can-do attitude, and positive personal self-image. Millennials are ready to take on the world. Encourage—don’t squash them or contain them.
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4. Take advantage of the Millennials’ comfort level with teams. Encourage them to join. They are used to working in groups and teams. Millennials gather in groups and play on teams; you can also mentor, coach, and train your Millennials as a team.
5. Listen to the Millennial employee. Your Millennial employees are used to loving parents who have scheduled their lives around the activities and events of their children. These young adults have ideas and opinions, and don’t take kindly to having their thoughts ignored.
6. Provide challenge and change. Boring is bad. Millennials seek ever-changing tasks within their work. What’s happening next is their mantra. Don’t bore them, ignore them, or trivialize their contribution.
In tomorrow’s Advisor, we’ll look at more Millennial management tips and at a timely audio conference that will answer your specific questions on intergenerational management.
Hone your Feedback Skills – Because Millennials are used to getting lots of praise and many have gotten little reality-based corrective feedback, managers need to be extremely skilled at giving feedback to this group.
“Old school” approaches to feedback such as only giving feedback when they’ve done something wrong or going on and on about a mistake in a scolding tone of voice will send your Milliennials packing.
This isn’t about sugar coating or ignoring sub par performance, it’s about learning how to frame mistakes in a constructive, forward-moving way. So make your corrective feedback brief and to the point, and do so in an upbeat “I know you can do better” tone rather than a frowning, disapproving tone, and then move on to what you want them to do instead.
Make sure you follow up with praise for the improvements you see.
For more guidelines, you might want to check out:
How to Give Constructive Feedback So It’s Actually Constructive
http://humannatureatwork.com/articles/management_development/constructive-feedback1.htm
Today’s email contained 6 points of a ten tip list on helping millennials adapt and thrive. It seems to me that these 6 points are universal to nearly all mankind. Please look at the list again and consider.
1. Provide structure. The author simply says that millennials want clear communication of expectations from management. Don’t we all?
2. Provide leadership & guidance. Again, I contend this is a universal desire of all employees, regardless of generation.
3. Encourage the millennials…Everyone needs and appreciates encouragement. It is not a need unique to the younger generation.
4. Take advantage of their comfort with teams. This may be the one point in this list of six that may be more like the millennial generation than other generations. But, I dare suspect that one could provide some evidence that shows that humans are social/team creatures.
5. Listen to the millennial. Again, this common sense advice is valid for any employee regardless of age.
6. Provide challenge and change. Does the author assume that baby boomers are content with monotony and boredom?
The advice given is good for employees of all ages. Contending that it is uniquely applicable to a new generation is nonsense.