Four tips to engage and retain the millennial employee

Millennial talent can often present a challenge for management. With a reputation for job-hopping and having less company loyalty, millennials can seem hard to retain or motivate. But this challenge often comes from a deep misunderstanding between millennial employees and management.

Here are four management tips to engage and motivate your millennial workforce.

#1 Explain the big picture

Millennials have a desire to understand how their work fits in the grand scheme of how an organisation works. As a result, giving them isolated tasks devoid of context can be extremely demotivating. Spending five minutes to explain how a certain project fits as a piece of the puzzle can go a long way. This small effort can pay off by increasing employee dedication.

#2 Give a sense of meaning

“Why are we doing what we are doing?”, “Why are certain things done in one way rather than another?”, “What is the larger purpose we are serving?”. These can seem like trivial questions but among the ones that millennials are asking themselves. Providing the answer to these questions can inject a higher sense of purpose and connect employees to a company’s mission for the long-term.

#3 Allow ownership