Millennials will form half of the global workforce by 2020. Understanding how to engage them is a must, but many employers are missing a trick when it comes to doing so through coaching and mentoring, suggests research. Carola Hieker and Harshada Topale report
Millennials, the generation born between 1980 and 2000, will form 50% of the global workforce by 2020 and therefore shape the workplace for years to come (PwC, 2012). It’s vital then, that organisations ensure they accommodate millennials’ desires and needs.
A study by Richmond, the American International University in London, asked HR professionals how they’re accommodating the needs of millennials, and asked millennials what they expect from their workplace.
What emerges suggests strongly that coaching and mentoring are not just nice-to-haves, but must-haves for organisations to be attractive to millennials. Yet many employers are failing to recognise the opportunity.
While millennials have a reputation for being tough to manage, entitled and self-interested (Sinek, 2016), they’re also recognised as having an affinity with the digital world, and for expecting rapid career progression, constant feedback and continual learning (PwC, 2012). As a result, millennials examine organisational values and development opportunities before choosing an employer (Alton, 2017).
The Research
The research of the American University examines what millennials expect in term of development from their employers and how organisations react to millennials’ expectations.
Twelve senior management executives and HR professionals from ten organisations across different industries, including manufacturing, engineering, finance and professional service firms, were interviewed.
Quantitative research on millennials with work experience was also conducted, in which they were asked for their expectations and experience around availability of mentoring and coaching.
In general, the research confirms some characteristics of millennials identified in other surveys, eg, they:
- want to have a clear career path of advancement
- want to do work that has a social impact
- expect the organisation to support them in their personal development
- keep looking for new opportunities and aren’t afraid to change employers
- are highly stimulated by and interested in learning
- show a lack of patience concerning their next career steps and expect early promotion
- like to travel internationally.
The research identifies additional characteristics, in which millennials describe themselves as:
- being decisive
- succumbing to peer pressure
- being at ease with changing their employer even though they are loyal to their profession
- not shying away from working hard if required, however preferring to work smarter than harder
- being flexible to change.
Based on this data characterising millennials and their expectations, the focus of the interviews with the HR professionals was to understand what strategies are adopted by organisations to engage this generation.
The interview questions explored the organisation’s:
- understanding of millennials
- communication strategy including communicating the company’s vision and sharing news and information
- development opportunities such as training, mentoring and coaching
- line managers’ contribution in engaging employees.
The results show that, in particular, bigger companies have programmes and practices in place that were seen to be helpful in engaging millennials. Next to employee engagement/satisfaction surveys and diversity training, for example, on unconscious bias, HR professionals felt that ‘talent programmes’ were a good way of recognising the work of employees and making them feel valued.
The following two programmes offer typical initiatives focusing on the millennial generation:
- Fast track programme for graduates
A programme where recently hired employees are assessed after the first couple of years and, based either on performance reviews or additional assessment (eg, interview), progress to a different, more senior role.
- Talent programme for experienced high potentials
A programme in which employees who have spent four to five years in an organisation and are recognised as high potential, are eligible to participate. Often these talent programmes include secondments to different functions or to a different country.
In addition to these more traditional talent programmes, other initiatives mentioned by the HR professionals included programmes in which:
- recent graduates were trained in additional technical or business skills with a move to a permanent position after successful completion
- peers/managers can nominate champions in recognition of good work. The management then considers these nominations and selects the winner for public recognition
- managers allocate tokens to individuals for their work based on predefined categories. These tokens can later be converted to gift vouchers.
Next to these initiatives recognising the importance of networking, the HR professionals also mentioned setting up networking events to encourage dialogue between millennials and senior management.
However, despite investment in these different schemes, one key insight of the interviews was that many organisations do not have formal mentoring and coaching programmes to develop millennials.
In the quantitative research, millennials stated that only eight out of 38 respondents had mentoring programmes in their organisation.
At the same time, 76% believed they needed mentoring and 71% that they would acquire and master new skills, and that mentoring/ coaching would clearly facilitate their development.
Conclusion
This research suggests that despite various programmes and initiatives, organisations still don’t meet the expectations of millennials for mentoring and coaching. While the results of both the qualitative and quantitative research show that organisations try to engage millennials through different initiatives, mentoring and coaching is significantly under-represented.
Clearly, organisations are missing an opportunity. Not only would the millennial client benefit from a well-designed and managed mentoring programme, but the mentor and organisation would also develop and grow too (Hieker & Rushby, in press).
- Dr Carola Hieker is a senior executive coach, qualified supervisor and professor for leadership and organisational behaviour at Richmond, the American International University in London.
She is the founding partner of hilcoaching: www.hilcoaching.com and co-founder of diversity-in-leadership: www.diversity-in-leadership.com - Harshada Topale is a founder and director of IT consulting, advisory company, Cloud Counselage: www.cloudcounselage.com
She is also an MBA graduate from Richmond, the American International University in London
References
- L Alton, How Millennials Are Reshaping What’s Important in Corporate Culture. [online] Forbes, 2018. Available at: http://bit.ly/2znSt6B [Accessed 23 Feb. 2018]
- C Hieker and M Rushby, ‘Diversity in the workplace: How to achieve gender diversity in the workplace’, in B Christiansen & H C Chandan (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Industrial and Organizational Research in the Modern Workforce. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2017
- C Hieker and M Rushby, ‘Designing a mentor program’, in J Steaniak (Ed.), Strategic Mentoring and Coaching for Optimal Performance in the Workplace, Hershey, PA: IGI Global, (in press)
- YouTube, Simon Sinek on Millennials in the Workplace [online]. Available at: http://bit.ly/2OTSc0h [Accessed 17 Jul. 2018]
- PWC, Millennials at Work. [Online], 2012. Available at: https://pwc.to/2zqfJ3S
- PWC, Reshaping the Workplace. [Online], 2012. Available at: https://pwc.to/2Krqasb [Accessed 29 June 2017]