Managing Millennials at Work

If there’s a shift happening in workplaces today, it’s the role employees are playing within a business. Where a decent salary and scheduled breaks were once sufficient to keep an employee from walking out the door, any manager serious about hiring the best — and having those individuals perform at their best — should already be realising the importance of valuing and recognising individual efforts. This can’t be truer than with the Gen Y, or Millennial, Generation.

Today, if you want a Millennial employee to care about the work they are doing, you show them you value their contribution.

While studies show they have every intent to stick around for much longer than the 1-2 years they are accused of lasting with any one employer, that doesn’t mean they won’t walk out the door if they don’t find what they’re looking for with you. When you go a step beyond, and consider your hires as investments to the company’s overall growth and development, they’ll return that with great work, passion, enthusiasm, loyalty and motivation. Well, that’s what the management journals and research bodies are telling us, anyway.

Millennials need engagement!

Born anywhere between the early 1980s to the early 2000s, this is a generation of digital natives, who feel at home online creating and consuming content via web-based technology. These go-getters place a high importance on self-actualisation. Many aim to make their career and lifestyle one and the same – all the better if their careers follow altruistic endeavours.

Generation X, born anywhere between the mid-1960s to the late 1970s, are adaptable and resourceful – their problem-solving skills allow them to operate as collaborative colleagues in the workplace. Where Millennials were born into the digital and technological age, Gen X-ers grew with the advancements of technology. They embraced these changes and made them a part of their lives.

Incorporating Millennials into a workplace with Gen X colleagues, particularly if the hiring manager is from the Gen X group, means understanding how to recruit, lead and retain a Millennial. The act of employing a Millennial begins long before the job is advertised.

Are you managing Millennials? Then stop.

Before recruiting for a new role in your team, it’s important to understand the kind of leader your talent pool, made up of Millennials and Gen-Xers, responds to. This will enable any hiring manager to properly manage and nurture their staff, and bring out the best in each individual.

According to Rob Reutman’s article, This is How Millennials Want to be Managed, Millennials value feedback from those managing them.

Gen Yers want to know how they’re doing much more often—and the best leaders are finding ways to give it to them, through recognition at work, social media updates, peer evaluations or extensive mentorship programs.

Recognition of their successes, and support for further training, makes a Millennial feel valued. People leading Millennials in the workplace will bring out the best in them if they offer them more than one project to fulfil, allowing them to work collaboratively in a team and working with the technology available to them to execute their tasks.

Dr. David G. Javitch’s article Motivating Gen X, Gen Y Workers notes that Gen-Xers, like their Gen Y counterparts, also value feedback from their managers, but want to be given opportunities to make informed decisions in the workplace, too. “Since this generation has become accustomed to “fending for themselves,” provide options–options for task selection, options for challenges, options to formulate new processes, and options to develop creative yet appropriate conclusions”, he notes. Gen-Xers also work well with leaders who offer them room for growth by gaining new skills and providing movement within their role. Feedback Gen-Xers look for in their leaders are best given during mentorship sessions and arrangements.

Communicating with Millennials in the workplace

Millennials are both digital natives and, by and large, very much open to feedback and robust dialogue in the workplace. Their experience of technology and, in particular, social media, means that there should be no excuse for poor communication between staff members. Redii’s e-book, Building Your Dream Team, acknowledges that social media is shifting the way we communicate with our colleagues. Using social media, therefore, as a way of providing regular feedback and readily accessible information, shows Millennials that transparency and open communication is valued in their workplace.

Millennials are keen to work collaboratively with their colleagues – it’s a way of developing their professional network and building meaningful friendships in the workplace. This also includes collaborating on ideas with colleagues who are senior to them. Communicating from the top level down and vice versa from the bottom up allows a Millennial access to different areas of the business and develops their knowledge of the company.

Millennials need recognition from their peers and their managers to understand how they are progressing within the business, and, overall, in their careers. Moving up the ranks is important to a Millennial (as it is to anyone of any generation), and when they are recognised for a job well done, they feel valued. The use of Redii’s software to congratulate or thank a colleague for their efforts communicates to the company that they are a worthy member of the team.

Do you have millennials in your workforce? Have you noticed a difference in the way they participate in the workplace? Do you change your leadership or communication styles to suit?

Building your Dream Team is a FREE e-Book that we created to help to unite, engage and empower your people, including Millennials!

Gratitude at Work

Creating a culture of gratitude at work pays.

When was the last time your boss thanked you for achieving something at work? Can you think of a moment or was it too long ago? If that’s too hard basket, ask yourself when was the last time you thanked your colleague for their impact in a project or on the business? It probably isn’t part of your daily practice, but gratitude at work should be. Here’s why:

It’s good for you (whether your receiving or giving thanks)

While we might thank our friends when they do us a favour or the barista who got our coffee order spot-on, research shows that very few of us feel thankful for our jobs, much less express gratitude. A 2013 survey of 2,000 people by the John Templeton Foundation found that not only did most people feel better when someone thanked them, but also reported improved mood when they thanked another worker. In other words, expressing appreciation is a mood booster just as surely as receiving praise. And yet, few of us do so regularly: the same survey found that a huge 60% of workers never express gratitude to their colleagues.

Studies show that people who feel grateful for the good things in their lives are more even tempered, happier, and feel better supported by others – all traits which make an excellent employee and contribute to positive workplace culture. We also know that grateful people in high-stress careers, such as teachers, are less likely to burn out. That’s not only good for the employee, but good for the company: a lower turnover rate means recruitment costs stay low, and happy, engaged employees demonstrate higher job performance.

Grateful people make better leaders

Anyone has the ability to lead by example and create a gratitude culture amongst your employees; whether or not you are a manager. But leaders who walk their talk and model gratitude for the work that their team members do will pay dividends in productivity and morale and from there, help your company’s bottom line.

The Templeton survey found that 81% of respondents would work harder for a more grateful boss, as well as feeling better about themselves and their workplace. Even more of the respondents (90%) felt that a boss who expresses gratitude was more successful than one who didn’t, putting to rest the idea that thanking your staff is a sign of weakness.

Relax. Practicing gratitude at work can be learned.

With everything to gain from expressing gratitude and nothing to lose, here are some tips for how to model a thankful workplace for the good of all.

Seek out opportunities to ‘catch’ your employees doing something right. Acknowledging and appreciating employees doing something right is a far more successful path to work excellence, than continually pointing out what they are doing wrong. The problem for a lot of managers is that work well done is by its nature more invisible than mistakes, so you will have to make a conscious effort to look for the good in your employees’ day and mention it.

Be specific and authentic. A manager who limits their praise to a generalised “good job, everyone!” might as well not bother. For praise to feel authentic, it should be targeted to the individual and based on concrete actions.

Encourage gratitude sharing within your team. Kick off your team meeting by going around and sharing something at work that each member feels thankful for. It might feel awkward at first, but you’ll find that the rest of the conversation takes a different tone from a meeting to which everyone has brought their grievances and resentments. Or do what Plasticity Labs did, and ask your employees to devote time to write down the things about their job that make them thankful. Researchers saw immediate improvements in morale and lower turnover in the group that did the exercise regularly, making it well worth the investment in time to facilitate.

Cultivate the habit of feeling as well as expressing gratitude in your own time. Dr. Robert Emmons, who is spearheading a three-year project at the University of California called Expanding the Science and Practice of Gratitude, is a firm believer in keeping a gratitude journal. Take time at the beginning or end of each day and write down five things that you’re grateful for that day. As you continue to practice gratitude, you become more attuned to feeling it, and your thank-you to staff and colleagues will benefit from the added sincerity.

Be humble. Nobody’s saying that you should ignore your own contributions or be craven in your dealings with your team, but it is worth realising, and believing, that your success as a leader rests very largely with the abilities of the people on the journey with you. When you say thank you to them for working hard, innovating and pulling together, you should mean it: their success is your success. This is well worth modelling for your team’s sake as well; a good employee is someone who recognises that they can learn from one another and is grateful to the people who help them become better.

Make sure your employees have the tools, training and sufficient time to accomplish their tasks and meet company goals. Few things make employees feel more unappreciated, frustrated and unhappy as not having the appropriate resources for their job. By checking in with them about what support they need, you’re telling them that you do support them, because you’re grateful for what they bring to the company. That combination of physical and emotional investment in them as employees is a powerful tool in making your team great.

If all of this seems awkward or overwhelming, don’t panic. Gratitude, like most things, is a learned art. With practice, you’ll find that feeling and expressing gratitude in the workplace becomes part of your daily interaction with colleagues and employees. Be concise, sincere and consistent, and the whole company will reap the benefits. Now that’s something to be grateful for!

Employee Motivation

It’s the time of year when millions of people around the world want to slow down and take a break from work. Here are four ways to motivate employees and keep them productive, without having to spend thousands of dollars on end-of-year bonuses.

1. Promote an attitude of gratitude

“Thank you” is such a common phrase that people often underestimate its power, but that’s starting to change. Research by The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkley and Harvard Medical School is starting to show people who practice gratitude are more likely to be happy and healthier than their less grateful peers. And, according to research from the Wall Street Journal and iOpener Institute, employees who are happy and healthy spend 65% more time feeling energised, and believe they are achieving their potential twice as much as their unhappy peers. Want to know how to motivate employees? Start by thank you to any one in the office today, start as soon as you finish reading this article. Write them a thank you note to recognise even a small thing they have done today. Or, if you’re a people leader, set your team members a challenge to set aside time each week to list the things you are grateful for.

2. Make a list and check it twice

Make a “nice” list. But instead of filling it up with names of nice people, fill the list with employee achievements from the past year. List the projects your team members have successfully delivered. Take note of the challenges you’ve overcome by working together. Acknowledge the new comers who’ve joined you. Pull a report from Redii’s recognition history and review all the times your employees were thanked or rewarded by their peers. Then thank your employees verbally for their efforts.

Need proof that this is going to impact motivation and performance? Researchers at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania did a study with two groups of university fundraisers. One group made phone calls to solicit alumni donations, while the second group received a motivating talk from the director of annual giving, who told them she was grateful for their efforts. The employees who heard her message of gratitude made 50% more fund-raising calls than those who did not.

3. Make growth plans for the new year

We all want to feel like we’re getting somewhere and accomplishing things – whether that’s at work or in our personal lives. So talk with your employees about where areas they want to grow and learn in the new financial year, and work with them to create an action plan so they have something to look forward to.

In his book Delivering Happiness, CEO of Zappos Tony Hsieh describes how offering smaller, but more frequent promotions had a measurable increase in employee satisfaction. You might not have the budget or the headcount to promise your employees a big promotion, but Zappos found that offering smaller promotions or opportunities to grow in skill and training, say every 3 months, would result in increased employee satisfaction and motivation.

Apply this lesson in your goal-setting with your employees and you’ll find they’ll be more motivated to start working towards that next milestone on their way to greatness.

4. Encourage generosity: give your employees opportunities to give

A 2013 study by United Health Group called “Doing Good is Good for You” proved that employer volunteer programs increased engagement and productivity. Of those who volunteered:

75% of the people felt healthier

90% said volunteering put them in a better mood

75% reported experiencing less stress

Studies show healthier, happier and less stressed employees leads to better performance, improved customer service and improved workplace culture.

None of these strategies cost a lot of money, but they are effective. Fostering gratitude and generosity not only lifts the motivation and performance of your employees, it, when used strategically, can help you create a workplace culture that your people are proud to be part of.