In 2018 Millennials became the largest generation in the U.S. labor force, and as of July 2019, they eclipsed the Baby Boomers as the largest generation in the U.S.
Millennials have been reshaping the world of work. The new batch of employees has different expectations from their work and personal lives, meaning that savvy companies should shift the ways they market themselves in order to attract and retain the best talent.
Successful businesses understand the shift in trends and are discovering how to appeal to millennials through the HR benefits they offer— gone are the days when a foosball table and Friday happy hours count as company perks. Vacation perks and payroll benefits like generous stock options and departmental performance bonuses are becoming commonplace, but employers should be happy to learn that the perks Millennials crave won’t add much to your payroll costs. Start attracting millennials to your company by offering them the workplace perks they crave.
Three Workplace Perks Millennials Crave
Unlimited PTO
Employers offering workers an unlimited amount of paid time off have turned heads in recent years. Simplifying payroll by eliminating the distinctions between paid personal days and vacation time. Instead, they offer paid time off without restrictions. Millennials have embraced the new approach to time off, signaling a shift in the way people think about work. Younger people don’t always see the need for a defined work/life balance. Instead, they look at this from the perspective of merging work and life together. This is a major reason why policies like unlimited vacation is such a draw. You can join the trend by focusing on outcomes rather than attendance, by rewarding productivity with well-deserved time off.
Flexible Scheduling
Unlike machines, employees have responsibilities outside their work. Parents taking children to school, for example, might have time with a set start time for work. Similarly, employees who juggle full-time employment with care for elderly or sick family members also have difficulty squeezing their lives into a firmly structured work day.
Flexible work schedules add to the philosophy of focusing on results rather than attendance in the workplace. In some real-life cases, the results of giving flextime (or equivalent arrangements), resulted in little to no decrease in productivity. A full 91% of California employers said that this was the case when paid medical leave was instituted. You’ll probably need to have everyone working during certain periods of the day so that you can schedule meetings and other events, but letting staff choose working hours can be very beneficial to overall morale and productivity.
Remote Work Options
Millennials have grown up with powerful technology in their hands and expect to use it to make their work smarter and more efficient as they enter the workforce. Thanks to secure high-speed networks and powerful computers and mobile devices, people can work from almost anywhere. In many settings, remote workers can get more done than they could do at their employer’s office. Meanwhile, VoIP telephones, video conferencing and collaboration apps help bridge the gap between traditional and virtual employees. Create a remote work policy for your company and you’ll require less office space and overhead while giving your millennial workers a better work-life balance. There are plenty of examples (long and short) out there that will help guide you in creating this document.
Creative Performance Evaluations
Let your employees know precisely what you expect from them and how and when you will evaluate their performance. It’s becoming increasingly popular to change how performance reviews are done. Many companies have turned to using web applications to help with this, or even implement peer reviews as a means of productive feedback. Regardless of the method, it should go without saying that these evaluations always need to keep in mind the unique work environment that today’s digital world allows.
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