A study confirms what employers and HR managers have observed for a few years now: millennials switch jobs more frequently. Since it isn’t right to blame an entire generation of individuals, employers have to take responsibility for this job-hopping trend.
The reason that contributes most to the trend could be the economy. Most millennials cannot even provide for themselves fully when their boomer parents are financially comfortable and fulfilling responsibilities. While one organization alone cannot help its employees beat inflation, it can take the following few steps to retain best employees:
Acknowledge Their Hard Work
According to one Office Team survey, 90% of team leaders and managers believe that they acknowledge their junior team members’ hard work. On the contrary, less than one-third of junior employees believes that their hard works get acknowledged and appreciated. This great divide among the numbers clearly indicates why an organization can fail to retain best employees.
Keep Rewarding Employees
As mentioned above, organizations may not provide for their employees in a way their parents were provided for by their workplaces. However, it doesn’t mean that organizations could not try. Rewarding them for it can significantly help.
When most millennials hop jobs, they do so for increased salaries and greater benefits than they believe they cannot attain at their current jobs. However, most of the time, the organization losing the employee is perfectly capable of providing these benefits. They don’t do so because they don’t want to provide more to the employees.
Promote From Within
Several companies make the mistake of hiring new candidates for the upper management. There are various reasons this action can make it impossible for your organization to retain best employees.
First, it sends the junior employees that they don’t have a path to promotion. It encourages job hopping among employees since they get the message that they can only make it to senior positions by getting a job that hires them at that senior position.
Secondly, it makes the employees believe that the organization is trying to replace for development and training of employees by bringing in already trained talents.
It makes the organization look lazy and incompetent and sends the message that the employees will not learn or grow in their fields at their current jobs. This message can make even motivated, and passionate employees want to leave the organization and find a job where they can experience professional growth.
Last but not the least, make it a priority to focus on the training and development of all existing employees. When you train your employees, you invest time and money in them, making them feel responsible towards the organization.
It also makes them believe that the organization realizes their talent and is helping them grow. Even if that growth is slow in terms of positions and increment, employees can be patient with an organization that shows them with actions that they aren’t taken for granted.
