Millennials “need to have projects that are meaningful and have impact,” Edelman wrote. “They want to work on teams that get stuff done. As a group of workers, they are not interested in managing back-office processes or funneling approvals.”
In fact, about 80% of millennials believe the sole purpose of a company should be about more than making money, according to a recent webcast in the Microsoft Workplace series. “They believe businesses are part of both the problems and the solutions and we should try to make them better,” David Burstein, author of Fast Future, said on the webcast.
How to attract them? “It’s really about a sense of meaning,” Burstein said. Mirroring Edelman, millennials “want to be doing work that is purposeful … and also feel like they’re having a meaningful personal experience.” The employers and jobs that most attract and retain this generation provide at least one of those two important elements, he said.
Millennials also tend to believe that their employers should be as transparent and open as possible throughout the business. They’re not always sure what they, themselves, mean by that. And this generation of younger workers is learning, like their predecessors, that there are crucial business advantages in keeping certain things to yourselves. But they’re always pressuring upper management to push the envelope.