Millennials are famously nomadic employees. Where their parents stayed with the same companies for years and decades, millennials are more likely to move from company to company. Is this lack of stability really good for millennials? It certainly creates instability and waste for companies that have to keep shifting, hiring and training new people, and it seems to create uncertainty and instability for millennials too. Millennials want to settle down and have everything their parents had, the problem is that companies today aren’t offering the kind of deal millennials need in order to do what their parents did. So how does a company earn loyal employees?
Training
Instead of hiring a new worker that you’re going to have to train anyway, offer training to your existing workforce. Hire from within and train those workers in the special skills needed, whether it’s programming or a new foreign language or data center training. People like a change and a challenge every now and again, and offering that opportunity to your employees will benefit both you and them.
Benefits vs Pay
The other reason that people leave a company, or stay with a company, is the constant search for better pay or better benefits. Millennials especially are saddled with overwhelming mountains of student debt. They cannot afford to stay at jobs that don’t pay as well as competitors unless that lower-paying job can offer benefits that make up the difference.
Value People
The reason that benefits will sometimes tempt people into staying at a lower-paying job is because benefits show that you value the person more than their paycheck. People have no reason to stay loyal to a company that doesn’t even treat them like a real person.
Listen and Respond
One of the best ways to breed loyalty among your employees is by listening to their needs. When you’re deciding what to add to the benefits package, ask around to see what people want. If you’re thinking about expanding into a new area, ask around to see what your employees are interested in.
If companies put forth the effort to earn the loyalty of their employees with concrete offerings that their employees actually want, then they will see employees staying, no matter whether they’re millennials or not. It takes work, but more than that it takes a willingness to listen to people and make changes for them. With that, you can earn loyalty, better employees and more stability for yourself, your company and all your employees.