Here Is How Mentoring Tackles The Challenges With A Rise In Millennial Workforce

The massive rise in social media and dynamic digital transformations has changed our behaviors to a large extent in the past decade. The most significant impact of these can be seen in a specific group that we today call the "millennials," who witnessed the entire digital revolution. These behavioral changes significantly affect the functioning of big organizations today. It is a concern because the millennial workforce is growing in every sector.

Organizational challenges

One of the biggest challenges most organizations face today, and the best HRs couldn't agree less, is 'employee engagement. Creating an environment in a workplace where all the team members give their best each day is one of the challenges many organizations face globally. With the rise of the millennial workforce in organizations, more and more employees are actively disengaged at work. In a study by Gallup, which included more than 1 million respondents, it says that:

• Only 29% of millennial employees feel engaged at work.

• 71% think that they are either not engaged or not actively engaged in their daily work.

Unlike Gen X, which focused on job security and growth within an organization, millennials are focused on

• Gaining through experiences and exploring new areas
• Open to switching more fulfilling jobs

High attrition among millennials

It is another challenge for large organizations today, who face larger than ever attrition rates, which leads to losses amounting to millions of dollars each year spent on recruitment, onboarding and affects their turnovers. An employee's engagement on a day-to-day basis has a direct impact on organizations meeting their goals and success. According to a study by Millennial Branding and Beyond.com, it is estimated that this cost $15,000 to $25000 to replace a departed millennial employee. The best multinationals resort to extensive feedback and engagement programs to improve retention rates and build a solid and productive team.

A role of an organization in reducing attrition rate:

The study also revealed that 72% of respondents said their productivity was directly impacted by their manager's involvement and active participation in setting up goals and engaging them through their development cycle. The meeting between an employee and the organization is a two-way commitment based on trust, integrity, and clear communication. The best multinationals resort to extensive feedback and engagement programs to engage better with millennials to improve retention rates and build a solid and productive team. "Performance Management Systems" are making their way among enterprise tools like SAP, which focus not only on job-based growth but also the holistic development of an employee in terms of life skills and essential business skills. Performance management systems help in:

• Facilitates an employee's accurate alignment with the management's organizational goals, who serves as a mentor or coach.
• Creates short-term and long-term goals which are aligned with every member within the team and beyond.

• Doing away with the conventional feedback and appraisal systems.
• Focus on immediate rewards rather than year-end raises.
• Making employee development a more automated and regulated process.
• Reducing the feedback time from the conventional yearly routine to a weekly or monthly check-in activity.

Setting realistic challenges

Setting challenging and achievable targets daily while providing job clarity and prospects of an employee's daily contributions, managers can engage better with their millennial employees and build a strong team in an organization. According to research by Josh Bersin, they are setting shorter performance goals quarterly rather than annual goals has proven to generate 31% more returns from their performance process. The study suggests that setting monthly challenges and goals produces better results because of a continuous cycle of the constant feedback system.  

Mentoring the right way to drive this kind of system, the managers need to do away with the "Boss is right" mindset and become good listeners and incorporate the feedback and experiences into business strategy. A simple yet effective way of engaging an employee is to reflect on how their experience has positively affected its business and reward him with no delay. A sound performance management system and a manager who continuously engages with his employees and mentors and coaches them with his experiences help an employee identify the difference he is making at an organizational level, thus driving his engagement within the company.

Schedule a Demo to learn how MentorCloud can help improve your Millennial Engagement through Mentoring