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Friday, March 29, 2024

Employee motivation: a millennial’s perspective

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The  millennial generation’s share in the active workforce is increasing. Millennial, born between the early 1980s and early 2000, now occupy entry-level up to top executive posts in the corporate world. They are optimistic, cooperative team players, rule followers and racially and ethnically diverse (Howe and Strauss, 2000). And since they are fast becoming the most influential population in the workforce today, millennials are considered the future of business.

However, studies have shown that they tend to change jobs more often than the older generations. According to Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited’s fifth annual Millennial Survey, millennials express little loyalty to their current employers and that they are likely to quit their current job whenever a better opportunity comes. Thus, many companies struggle to manage and retain valuable millennial employees.

Keeping millennials engaged

Being a millennial myself, I often had discussions with my friends and co-millennials who work in different industries about the things that motivate us to stay with our employers. While most of us agree that competitive pay and benefits are still one of the top motivating factors in keeping our jobs, other non-monetary components that keep us engaged in our jobs also cropped up. Aside from fat pay checks, most millennials look for these things to keep them motivated: meaningful work, job flexibility and mentoring.

Our generation is more likely to look for meaning in work.  That is, millennials want to know that every task that they do has a purpose. We want to set clear objectives and know our role towards achieving the company’s goals. By helping us find our niche in the overall plan and set-up of the company gives us a clearer sense of purpose, which could help us become more productive. Also, a work environment where we feel that our opinion and decisions matter makes us empowered and provides us with a better sense of responsibility for all our actions and decisions.

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Providing work-life balance

Millennials are more motivated to perform better if they have flexible work environment. Work-life balance is important for this tech-savvy generation.  While we value our career and are willing to allot a significant portion of our lives building it, it is also imperative that we still have time to spend with our loved ones, to travel or to do whatever that we would like and need to do aside from work.

For an MBA student like me, having a flexible work schedule is important so that I can attend my class during weekdays. Since we can bring our work anywhere with the help of new technology, we also appreciate if we can do work from home from time to time especially when there are strong typhoons or for some reason we cannot go to the office but are still required to report for work. In this case, flexibility is beneficial for both employee and employer.

Finding good mentors

Millennials also tend to look for mentors who would help us succeed in our chosen field. We need guidance from more experienced employees to help us define our career goals and objectives.

Good mentors would stir us in the right direction to achieve our career goals and keep us on track if we are veering away from it. We expect honest and constant feedbacks from mentors so that we know if there are areas that we should improve on. We need outstanding individuals whom we can model ourselves after.

Based on the observations above, it can be noted that millennials know their worth and they want to feel in control of their careers. What the employers can do to retain millennial employees is to focus not only on pay and financial benefits but also on the non-monetary factors that will keep them engaged, committed and satisfied at work.

Michelle M. Fidel is an MBA student of Ramon V. Del Rosario College of Business at De La Salle University. This essay is part of the requirements of the course, Strategic Human Resource Management

The views expressed above are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official position of De La Salle University, its faculty and its administrators.

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