How do you make millennial employees happy? Let them volunteer
The millennial generation — those born roughly between 1982 and 2004 — now surpasses Generation X in comprising the largest share of the American workforce. According to the Pew Research Center, more than a third of American workers are millennials.
Like every generation before them, Millennials have been shaped by a unique set of social forces. They bring a distinctive mindset to the office that business owners and managers need to understand if they hope to attract and retain millennial employees.
Many millennials don’t see a job as just a job. They are much more interested in the mission and culture of a company than people of older generations. For them, it’s not just about what they do every day from 9 to 5, but about how that fits into a bigger picture. They want to feel good about the “why” of a company and its role in supporting the greater community. If they feel like they’ve bought in to a company’s mission, they will be even more motivated as employees.
According to the 2015 Millennial Impact report, 70 percent of millennials spent at least an hour volunteering their time and more than a third spent 11 hours or more. At Civic Works, we find that millennial volunteers tend to be repeat volunteers. And they don’t want to just write a check; they want to get their hands dirty. Accordingly, many millennials want or even expect volunteerism to be part of a company’s DNA.
The good news is that promoting volunteerism in the workplace is a win-win for everybody. If a company makes volunteerism part of their culture — whether that’s through encouraging and rewarding employees for individual volunteer efforts or through sponsoring company-wide volunteer projects — the benefits will more than make up for whatever marginal costs are involved.
Company-sponsored volunteer projects, whether it’s spending the day working at a farm or turning a vacant lot into something that benefits the neighborhood, can be a great vehicle for team building and boosting esprit de corps. Employees not only can feel good that their company is doing something to give back, but they can interact with people they might not get to work with on a daily basis, and build relationships in way you can’t get from sitting in a meeting. The CEO can roll up her sleeves and help right next to the cafeteria worker. These events can lead to improved morale and a more productive work force.
There are a number of other ways that companies can easily make their workplaces more service-friendly. It might mean giving paid time off for volunteer work. It might mean making grants to charities if employees volunteer a certain number of hours there. It might mean encouraging and facilitating employees’ serving on the boards of local non-profits.
All of these things can serve to boost the good will associated with a company name, which will only further serve to attract and keep millennial workers. Besides the obvious benefit to the community, anything that managers can do to make the workplace more service-friendly will actually ultimately benefit their bottom line.
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