If there’s one thing the pandemic has shown millennials is that there’s no time like the present. And according to stats, many this generation have either left their workplaces or are considering it.
While the pandemic forced us all on a time out, the noise that did continue to rise was the incongruency with what was happening for millennials prior to, versus what they might prefer. Both personally, and professionally. Including the realisation, for some, that the things that occupied their parents and grandparents’ generations are not only becoming less reachable, but also less important.
It wasn’t that many decades ago when owning your own home, having a secure job and raising your own family was a goal shared by the majority in society. But with housing affordability becoming increasingly out of reach, the question of whether the earth needs more people affecting reproductive choices and the lure of the wide blue yonder beckoning, the goals and choices of millennials are undergoing a significant shift.
Throw in a pandemic and new ways of working, and the younger generations have realised something – they don’t need to subscribe to a status quo that doesn’t belong to their generation.
Remote working and the uncertainty of what tomorrow might bring has seen record numbers of millennials quit their jobs. ‘The Great Resignation’ is what it’s been termed. But in figuring out where these millennials are all going, we’re seeing that it’s not to another workplace.
Instead, they’re taking a chance and doing what they want to do in life. A rejuvenated sense of ‘You Only Live Once’ (YOLO) and the realisation that there is no time like the present.
In fact, research shows that millennials are more concerned with work/life integration and mental/emotional wellness than previous generations and being stuck in an office striving towards something that they can’t or don’t want to achieve (e.g. owning a house, having kids), isn’t making them happy. Instead, millennials are taking a chance, grabbing a start-up loan, and dreaming differently.
While we can’t help cheering them on, if you look in their wake, there are employers, organisations and companies that have a problem on their hands. And perhaps for the first time ever, one that can’t be fixed by the intoxicating waft of freshly minted money. Instead, millennials want freedom. Freedom to dictate their working hours, where they work, how they work, how creative they can be and how good they can feel. None of that has a monetary price tag attached.
These new priorities are making recruitment and retention of millennial staff difficult. Which means employers will need to change what they offer as incentives and then change how they go about keeping people.
For workplaces, this is going to necessitate a huge shift in the way things have always been done and in turn, change the way things are done in future.