What Do Millennials Want From Their Work Place?
This tends to be a hot topic for businesses these days. Businesses, governments and non-profits are struggling with how to relate and retain the best talented millennials. I witnessed an exchange while doing some research on millennials in the workplace that piqued my interest on this subject. To provide a context here was the lightbulb.
During a conversational debrief about the perceptions of millennials in the workplace I listened to an exchange between a millennial, who we’ll call Samantha, and a person of an older generation, who we’ll call George. Samantha, who works at a large corporation, stated that she enjoyed working at her company because of an agreement she made with her manager. Samantha asked her manager if her schedule could be 7am to 3pm instead of the standard 9am to 5pm.
George asked, and I’m paraphrasing here, “What gives you the right to ask for an adjustment to your schedule when you just started working at that company?” George was perturbed with the ‘gall’ of the millennial to ask for a ‘special privilege’ so early in her career.
The gulf of understanding between Samantha’s desire for more flexible hours and George’s affront to Samantha’s asking was large. I decided to ask a question of Samantha myself during this exchange. “Samantha, if standard work hours were from 7 to 3 would you have asked to work from 9 to 5?” Samantha’s reply was revealing. “Probably. I’m not a morning person. I just wanted the option. Now I realize I actually like getting up in the morning because I have a few hours of quiet at work before everyone shows up.” Basically, Samantha just wanted an option. George, however, was brought up in a generation that you followed the company line so you don’t ask for ‘special privileges.’
This exchange of generational cultural divide spurred me on to dig a little deeper into what millennials want, and don’t want, in the workplace. I do not portend to have the answer for each millennial because each person, no matter his or her generation has individual motivations and needs, but I did put together the following findings.