This is the final part in a five part series focused on Millennials.

Here’s the thing: Millennials are already in leadership positions. And the number of Millennials moving into leadership positions over the next ten years is going to grow astronomically. According to the Deloitte global study on Millennials, entrepreneurship is still the preferred path for Gen Y. So what does that mean for organizations that want to be around in 20 years? It’s time to recognize how Gen Y is changing leadership and start adapting to new ways of doing business.

Millennials want to be leaders, but a different type of leader. They’ve seen unprecedented growth in new Internet companies and their quick-moving leadership style reflects that. Given the struggles traditional companies have faced, Millennial leaders are doing things differently. Keep them motivated and committed by giving them the space to create, relate, innovate, and actuate.

Even better? Encourage intrapreneurship in your organization. If you create the right space for Gen Y leaders to act as intrapreneurs, you’ll have a real recipe for success. Give them the chance to own and run their piece of the organization, even the chance to start something new from within. Harness their generation’s natural entrepreneurial spirit. Encourage, recognize and support their energy internally.

Millennials, even more than previous generations, want their careers to have a real impact. Creating intrapreneur programs or simply encouraging it among leaders in general is a great step. Giving your youngest leaders the opportunity to have an impact both inside and outside the company will align with their natural desire to make a difference. Whether you provide those opportunities or not, Millennials are likely to seek them out and create them. Allow them to do so if you want to ensure your leadership pipeline won’t slow down.

It’s important to remember Gen Y leaders value authenticity and inclusiveness above almost anything else. They want to be approachable (no matter what position they hold in an organization), honest, true to themselves, transparent and respectful of others. They want to inspire and motivate the people around them, and it’s important for them to be wholly who they are to do that. They won’t hide the bad and the ugly, they will share those things, along with the good, without hesitation. Traditionally, this hasn’t been the way most organizations have worked. Embrace the change! Gen Y is very community-focused and they feel the more information everyone has, the better off they are. They’ll use that community to help solve problems and open up new ways to fix “bad news”.

Along with authenticity, Millennial leaders thrive on recognition. Not just for themselves; they’ll recognize the people around them quickly and heartily. If you want to develop and keep your young leaders, it’s time to come up with new recognition programs — and relegate once a year performance reviews to the trash heap. Ongoing and immediate feedback, and continuous learning and improvement, is the wave of the future. Millennials want to grow and improve. Robust recognition and feedback systems combined with a customized learning and development programs will give your organization a competitive advantage in the future.

Millennials want to be leaders, but sometimes they lack the experience and capabilities to take on those roles. Provide them with soft skills training that will help them understand themselves better, and improve the impact and influence they have on those around them. Previous generations were content to adopt the “management style” of their predecessors, despite some obvious shortcomings. Gen Y won’t be content doing the same if they don’t see an alignment with their vision and values. Give them the practical training and experience that allows them to put their newfound skills into practice immediately.

This is not an exhaustive list of the traits, characteristics and important considerations for Millennial leaders, but I hope you’ve found it a useful starting point for discussion in your organization.

If you’d like to read the rest of the series, start here and you can read it in order.

Click here f you’d like to learn more about how we can work with you or to book Céline for a workshop or talk.

This is the fourth in a five part series on Millennials in the workplace.

It’s really quite simple: retaining great employees saves you money. Replacing someone can cost anywhere from 20 to 200% of that person’s salary, depending which study you’ve read and the person’s role in the organization. Leaders know a low turnover rate is ideal for their company’s health. Industry and departmental changes aside (for example, Netflix changing from a company that shipped DVDs to one that streamed digital content), the lower your turnover, the better your organization’s knowledge retention, employee happiness, branding, and profitability.

So how do you go about retaining Millennials who have a reputation as job hoppers and not staying anywhere more than two years?

First, let’s dispel that myth. There’s no concrete evidence to suggest Gen Y is any more or less likely to leave their jobs sooner than other generations[i]. That being said, evidence suggests Millennials are less committed to their jobs than previous generations[ii]. While I don’t always agree with the reasons these studies cite, I do agree this youngest generation is the least engaged in a generally unengaged workforce.

At the end of the day, if you engage Gen Y, you’ll retain them. Assuming you’ve attracted and motivated them adequately, what are the keys to keeping them on board?

1. Embrace innovation

I feel this can’t be emphasized enough when it comes to keeping the youngest generation around longer than two years. Whether innovation is through technology or how you do business, embracing change and innovation is vital to retaining Gen Y. These “digital natives” simply won’t understand your reluctance to do so; they’ll feel your company is outdated if it isn’t continuously moving forward.

2. Challenge them

While enjoying challenge isn’t exclusive to any one generation, the Millennials see it as a requirement. If you want to keep them around longer than average, you’ll have to find new ways to challenge them and pique their curiosity. And taking advantage of their fresh perspective might even earn you some unexpected wins!

3. Coaching and Mentoring

More than previous generations, Gen Y understands the value of coaching and mentoring relationships, and their resulting partnerships. While I always recommend formal coaching and mentoring programs for organizations, even an informal one will help you take the right steps to retaining Millennial employees.

4. Create partnerships

A vital component to creating brand or organizational loyalty with Millennials is co-creating the value they see in it. This concept has been talked about in marketing but, when it comes to Millennials, it’s just as important in an organizational capacity. If you allow Gen Y to be a partner in their experience with your company (let them have input, give them control, allow them to customize) you’ll have much more loyal employees.

5. Help them contribute

Contributing, especially to the greater good, is one of the key distinguishing characteristics of Gen Y. If they feel they’re contributing to something beyond the bottom line, you’ll have created the right milieu for top-performing employees. And if your organization has clear policies on charitable contributions that align with employees’ belief systems, even better!

6. Employee experience

Your employee experience is so much more than a paycheque, signing agreements, or interactions with a manager or HR department. If you want to retain Gen Y, you have to start treating their employee experience as a process in and of itself from their first interest in the job to their last day at work (and becoming a potential customer).

Once you’ve created a culture that’s appealing to the next generation of leaders, you’ll be in an ideal position to grow your leadership pipeline and set yourself up for future success.

If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read so far, I encourage you to read the last part of this series: “Millennials as Leaders”.

[i] http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/enough-already-about-the-job-hopping-millennials/

[ii] http://www.payscale.com/career-news/2015/07/millennial-workers-are-less-engaged-and-less-stressed-than-other-workers

This is the third in a five part series focused on Millennials in the work place.

Many leaders are struggling with the influx of Millennials in the workplace. Unlike previous generations who were willing to do what they were told without asking questions, Gen Y is changing the rules. This isn’t a generation that succumbs to being managed — they truly embody the idea that you manage things but you lead people, and they expect real leadership as a result. Now, more than ever, it’s vital that organizations have leaders at all levels that understand this and focus on a few key things to bring out the best in Millennials.

The Why

To quote the brilliant Simon Sinek, you always have to start with why. If you aren’t clear on the “why” of things, and haven’t communicated it clearly, you’re going to struggle in leading your Millennials. Without understanding why they’re doing what they’re doing, and why the company itself exists is doing what it is doing, Millennials won’t feel engaged with any aspect of the organization. A common complaint I hear from leaders about Gen Y is that they ask too many questions; in fact, they’re sometimes called “Gen Why”. But in that joke lies one of the key secrets to leading Millennials: answer their questions and explain the “why”. Help them understand how what they do is connected to that question.

Multi-directional communication

Communication flows in all directions. Gone are the days of strict hierarchy where communication happened from the top down. These days it’s all about multi-directional communication. That means leaders must encourage everyone to share ideas and listen to differing opinions without passing judgement. Feedback is vitally important to Millennials and they need to know you’re listening to theirs. They’re the generation that’s lived in a world of instant response and constant validation. Leaders need to increase the frequency of feedback they give and receive from Gen Y.

Encourage ownership

Forget buy-in, you want ownership. The corporate world frequently banters around the idea of buy-in, as though it makes an actual difference. The reality is you want Millennials to feel they have ownership of their work. When you dictate to Millennials, you alienate them. When you ask for their input, and include them in conversations, they feel valued and heard — and their dedication to you as a leader and their role in projects deepens commensurately.

Be Authentic

Authenticity is your secret weapon. The traditional corporate way of doing things is decidedly inauthentic. Despite the lip service authenticity gets in marketing and branding, companies are more concerned about avoiding potential conflicts, disruptions and difficult conversations. Millennials aren’t interested in that approach. In fact, it’s an immediate turn off. All your leaders and teams should be open about the good, the bad and the ugly of what’s going on in your organization. By doing so, you create space for the collaboration Millennials crave. When you allow the possibility of innovation, and the opportunity to problem solve, Gen Y respects the “realness” of its leaders — and there’s nothing more jarring or obvious to them than “fakeness”.

Help them grow

Invest in their future, whether or not it’s with your organization. Show the Millennials you care about them and where they’re going by helping them create actionable professional and personal improvement plans. Then provide training and development opportunities that are in line with those plans. Gen Y is passionate about growing and learning and they’ll appreciate your efforts no matter where they end up later on. And as a bonus, this does nothing but good things for your overall brand and organization as you build a pipeline of leaders internally.

Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list of the ways to better lead Millennials, but it is a solid starting point that any leader in any organization can use.

Be sure to read the next post in this series, Retaining Millennials.

This is the second in a series on Millennials in the workplace.

Now that we have an overall understanding of Gen Y, and how they show up in the workplace, it’s important to attract those workers to your organization or team. If you want to grow, innovate and compete in the coming years, you are going to need their help.

According to the 2015 Deloitte Human Capital Trends report, one of the major concerns of business and HR leaders around the world is developing leaders at all levels. If you don’t have an eye to the future, you won’t have anyone to grow the business as your current leaders move on or retire. The absolute first step in filling your leadership pipeline is attracting the next generation of leaders.

Unfortunately, the traditional way of attracting talent isn’t working and organizations are struggling to keep up. Gone are the days of posting a job online, software scanning résumés for key words, HR reviewing the “matches”, scheduling interviews with the “top 10 candidates”, and hoping for the best. Gen Y knows they’re interviewing you as much as you’re interviewing them. They have access to a wealth of information online and if they want to work for you, they’ll have done their homework and then some.

If you want to attract the best Millennial talent it’s time to start thinking like a reVisionary leader and understand what the next wave of HR (or HR 2.0) is doing. Here are ten tips to attract the next generation of leaders to your organization:

Stop writing job descriptions like you’re hiring a robot. Clearly outline the expectations and results for the role and write the job description in everyday language that is easily understood.

Focus on your culture and people. Highlight what sets you apart and what makes people love working for your organization. Make it clear on your website, especially in the jobs/career section.

Sell yourself. Don’t focus on why you’d want the candidate to work at your company, but focus on why that person would want to work with you. Remember, Millennials don’t think of themselves working for a company but with a company.

Branding, branding, branding. It doesn’t matter how big or small your organization is, be consistent in your branding and make sure it’s up to date, appealing, and positive

Add a human touch. Have a real person review résumés and respond to candidates — there’s nothing worse than sending a résumé into the black hole of an HRIS and never hearing anything. Or worse yet, having a candidate follow up with the hiring manager and hearing nothing back, not even a polite “we aren’t interested in you” email. (Millennials are turned off by this and it will mar your brand significantly)

Be open-minded to styles of résumés. No one likes writing or reading impersonal summaries of work experience, so don’t discard something just because it looks different than what you’re expecting.

Reward creative applications. If someone writes their résumé in story format, uses first person, or submits a website or online portfolio, acknowledge and comment on that even if you don’t end up interviewing them.

Incorporate technology. You could use particular questions to screen candidates via video in the first round of interviews, or connect with people on LinkedIn or Twitter. Have an online application? Allow candidates to include links to websites or gifs or whatever else they feel will set them apart.

Don’t be limited by the technology you know. Your website, traditional job sites and LinkedIn may be great places to start, but think outside the box — post jobs on Twitter, Instagram, Periscope, or Facebook (to name a few).

Encourage employees to help with recruiting. They’re your best ambassadors and will have great insight into the expectations your job posting should include.

The keys to attracting Gen Y talent are incorporating technology; allowing them to showcase their personality and what makes them different; and to focus on the entire applicant experience. Your employee experience begins the minute a potential applicant hits your website, so make sure you’re giving them an experience that makes them interested in working for your organization.

Click here to read the third in the series titled: “Leading Millennials”

This is the first in a series of articles focused on Millennials in the workplace.

There’s been an increasing amount of chatter over the past few years about the Millennials or Generation Y. It seems every time you go to your favourite website there’s an article praising them for their community values, or berating them for their lack of work ethic (and everything in between). Regardless which camp you fall into, they’re a growing segment of the work force and you’ll have to embrace them if you want to keep your competitive advantage.

Like every generation that came before them, Millennials have been influenced by societal forces and share common traits. But like all generations, they’re made up of individuals with significant differences. While we might talk about the broad generalities most likely to shape the future, we always need to acknowledge the individuals, their circumstances and differences.

Generations always hyper-criticize the generation that follows them. Back in 1990, Time magazine wrote an article about Generation X with the tag-line “laid back, late blooming or just lost?” The article began:

“They have trouble making decisions. They would rather hike in the Himalayas than climb a corporate ladder. They have few heroes, no anthems, no style to call their own. They crave entertainment, but their attention span is as short as one zap of a TV dial. They hate yuppies, hippies and druggies. They postpone marriage because they dread divorce. They sneer at Range Rovers, Rolexes and red suspenders. What they hold dear are family life, local activism, national parks, penny loafers and mountain bikes.”

Does this sound suspiciously familiar?

Some of the traits we associate with Millennials have less to do with their generation than with their “stage” in life. And therein lies my personal and professional issue with the terminologies used to describe generations. I’ve been working with Millennials since they were in grade school, right up to the present. Truth be told, depending what dates you use to define generations, I could be considered one myself. So let’s start with defining what a Millennial is.

Depending on your source, people who are considered Gen Y where born anywhere from 1976 to 2000. Recently, the consensus in media seems to be that anyone born between 1981 and 2000 qualifies as a Millennial (although it should be noted that not even ten years ago the date range was more in line with the years associated with Gen Y). Although this is a highly popular opinion, I disagree. In fact, I think it’s a marketing ploy to use (and popularize) the term “Millennial” in a way that makes sense when writing or speaking about them. The reality is that there are no hard lines defining the start and end dates for generations (perhaps with the exception of the Baby Boomers thanks to WWII). But in my experience and opinion, Gen Y was born between 1978 and 1995, and I’d apply the name Millennials to the following generation born between 1996 and 2014 — but that’s going down a whole different track! To avoid confusion, I’ll use the commonly accepted definition of Millennials and interchange the term Generation (or Gen) Y.

It’s important to note some of the commonalities in this generation, especially those that are relevant to Millennials in the workplace.

1. They’re highly educated. Considering they are the wealthiest generation to date, it is not surprising that they are also the most educated.

2. They’re very focused on community and family, and aren’t interested in working 80 hours a week to sacrifice these things.

3. They’re willing to speak up for what they believe they deserve, instead of accepting what’s given to them.

4. They require a lot of feedback — often in the form of praise, but also constructive criticism.

5. They’re exceptionally hard workers; but not in the “traditional” way, nor necessarily during “traditional” hours.

6. They believe the person who does the best work should be rewarded, not just the person who’s been there the longest, or has seniority.

7. They expect access to leadership.

8. They want to be included in conversations and decisions, and feel they’re valued.

9. They are digital natives- technology is a part of their identity.

10. They’re team-oriented and this makes them very loyal — under the right circumstances.

11. Learning and growing is fundamentally important to them.

12. They need to understand why they’re doing things.

As the number of Millennials in the workforce increases, the more leadership teams and companies will have to adapt to their influence on the workplace. In fact, the companies that maintain and increase their competitive edge will be the ones that embrace the changes this generation brings — and learn how to attract, retain, and develop Generation Y.

Click here to read the second in this series: “Attracting Millennials”