As members of the CIO Healthcare Roundtable hosted by SIM San Diego, we listened to valuable feedback from current CIO’s in San Diego’s expansive healthcare industry, including one of the biggest challenges that many organizations in healthcare and technology face: attracting and retaining top talent with the millennial mindset.
As the baby boomer generation heads towards retirement, businesses are looking towards Millennials to fill leadership roles. Unfortunately, hiring efforts have been met with a millennial mindset that requires a complete shift from what attracted Generation X into the workplace.
So what do Millennial-aged workers want that’s different from the past? In a nutshell, they value flexibility, adaptability, and trust.
You feel that? That’s the culture shifting directly beneath your feet.
The Millennial Mindset is Here to Stay
According to a current global survey conducted by Deloitte University, It’s estimated that by 2025 half of the workforce will be Millennial workers — adults born between 1981 and 1996. In the U.S. alone, this generation claims the largest segment of the active workforce already.
As the Baby Boomer generation exits the workforce, company leaders must monitor employee retention rates, the first step in recognizing the need for workforce change. However, companies must also adapt to new employee expectations if they want to acquire talent and remain competitive.
New workforce data shows that Millennials prefer to stay in their jobs for longer periods than previously stated — some up to ten years. Although they’re stereotyped for job-hopping, Millennial work patterns reflect their search for balance, meaning, diversity, and tech.
Understanding that a generational communication gap exists in the workforce is the first step, and now it’s time for companies to embrace the changes that come with a new wave of talent.
The days of strict working schedules and sterile white-walled cubes are history — in the eyes of modern working employees. It’s time to face the facts, creativity and productivity doesn’t follow a daily 8-5 schedule.
Millennials and Flexible Work Arrangements
Recent surveys on the Millennial workforce show that the majority of younger employees value flexible working environments above all else. In fact, they likely won’t accept a job offer unless it’s part of the agreement. But flexible work doesn’t just refer to where a person works, it also covers ‘how’ a person works. Many millennials feel underutilized as professionals and crave leadership development opportunities or transparent growth plans at a minimum.
Millennials want the flexibility to manage their time and resources in a way that’s most effective to their life — not an easy freedom to acquire in large companies with traditional management structures. This approach breeds high quality work while also maintaining peak work/life balance — a win for both the employee and company.
Statistics also show that flexibility warrants loyalty that is otherwise non-existent in large corporations. Most importantly, the act of showing flexibility builds a foundation on trust in a time when automation and technological chaos are increasing the levels of stress and anxiety for employees.
Is Lack of Loyalty an Issue?
During the recent SIM Healthcare event, technology leaders expressed their concern with a lack of employee retention in their organizations. Most shared their challenge of holding onto employees that have the perfect balance of education and experience in their skill.
According to Deloitte’s fifth global-Millennial survey, these concerns aren’t isolated to one industry. Findings show that one in four employees within this age group plan on leaving his or her job within one year because expectations aren’t being met. This number jumps to 44% — of the 7,700 people surveyed — when extended over a two-year period.
“During the next year, if given the choice, one in four Millennials would quit his or her current employer to join a new organization or to do something different.” -Deloitte
The idea of having flexible working arrangements is a humanistic approach to employment; it resonates with modern employees who seek balance and sustainable habits. Work is becoming an extension of daily life rather than a harsh reality that we must all cope with as human beings. And it’s this control of one’s time management that alleviates the skepticism millennial’s feel towards large-scale business operations.
Management often feels at odds with employees who show symptoms of discontent or a lack of interest; in reality, the inability to retain talent is caused by my much deeper problems — although these problems can be fixed fairly easily with a new mindset.
The Emergence of a Modern Working Culture
As a new generation heads into the boardroom, a sense of purpose and the opportunity to make impactful change is most important to employees. In the Millennial mindset, the work itself isn’t everything; a “sense of being” is required to move forward with purpose and fulfillment in a professional role. A person’s health, happiness, and well-being all improve as meaning is created.
The Millennial mindset doesn’t follow the same logic that the workforce used to rely on as justification for being away from family for eight-plus hours a day. More meaning in a professional role — yet alone career — is required before any level of commitment can be exchanged for monetary reward.
We know that the starting point for creating a “culture shift” begins with leaders facilitating employee interaction, often through CSR initiatives. Give them meaning or give them death — this may sound extreme but modern professionals feel this way about their careers.
More to learn: A Better Approach to Employee Happiness
It’s time to view the need for purpose as an opportunity for large companies looking to retain their most valued talent. Since 2013 — the first year of Deloitte’s Global Millennial Survey — they have recorded an increasingly positive view of business and it’s ability to impact social change. This is great news for organizations who are still adjusting to the changing demands of the workforce; understanding the modern mindset opens the door to qualitative change: identifying where the business can make an impact on the outside-world while allowing its workforce to lead the charge.
“In fact, 88% of millennials say business in general, around the world is having a positive impact on the wider-society they operate in.”
Millennials are no longer leaders of tomorrow but rather leaders of today. Their non-traditional views of work are not just an observation to ponder; they’re a reality that needs to be met with cultural change — no matter how much effort it will require.
There’s no cookie-cutter approach to adopt the Millennial mindset; each business will have unique methods that suit the needs of its workforce. For a generation that already holds positions within the boardroom, it’s only a matter of time before they’re leading organizations themselves. Shifting a company culture to value flexibility and trust is strongly linked to the reversal of negative trends in workforce retention.
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*Main image by Annie Spratt