Looking to Attract More Millennials to Your Business? Offer Them More Opportunities for Growth

Millennials are dynamic, tech-savvy and eager to develop, making them valuable assets for employers. Just as valuable: Millennials care about making their mark and are willing to work hard and put in the necessary hours. Since they are 18 to 30 years old as of 2015, they could very well be the future of your company, which means that attracting and retaining millennials should be a priority for your business. To do so, offer millennials more opportunities for growth. Here’s how.

Engage in Dialogue
Talk with Millennials, either current employees or prospective employees, about where they see their careers going and how they might apply future education or training. Based on the feedback, your organization could offer leadership development tracks or invite a Millennial to participate in a project that is both stimulating and personally challenging. Millennials are eager to work long and hard as long as they find value and satisfaction in their labors.

Emphasize that management is always open to ideas. Keep an open-door policy and approach employees yourself to glean ideas. Also open the floor to ideas during meetings. Even better, present a problem or issue a few days ahead of time to give all employees time to think it through and prepare reasoned yet creative solutions.

Encourage Creativity, Which Leads to Growth
Millennials often think outside of the box and n come up with creative ideas, even if the solutions do not always work or are not applicable. Here are some ways to encourage creativity.

• Actively solicit ideas from everyone.
• Use brainstorming sessions and emphasize that there is no judgment.
• Practice strategies such as short-term staffing swaps or cross-shadowing in various job roles.
• Pay for a class in a field such as creative writing, painting or more.
• Support educated risk taking. Do not punish employees if an idea goes wrong.
• Develop worthwhile ideas; back up your talk through action.
• Allow employees to set up groups to raise money for various charities the company approves of.

Show Them That Their Professional Growth is Important to the Company

Talk to Millennial employees (and applicants) about possible future positions that they should strive for. It has to be apparent to a Millennial what the next step is in their career with your organization.

Image Source :  David Castillo Dominici