How to attract Millennials

meeting, business, contract, negotiationBusiness should focus on people and purpose, not just products and profits, to attract Millenials, according to Deloitte’s fourth annual Millennial Survey.

This, and other findings from the survey, suggest businesses, particularly in developed markets, will need to make significant changes to attract and retain the future workforce.

Deloitte Global surveyed Millenials (those born in 1983 or later) from 29 countries on effective leadership, how business operates and impacts society.

The results show that the demographic overwhelmingly believes businesses are focused on their own agenda rather than helping to improve society.

“The message is clear: when looking at their career goals, today’s Millennials are just as interested in how a business develops its people and how it contributes to society as they are in its products and profits,” said Hamish Wilson, Deloitte partner and human capital leader.

“These findings should be viewed as a wake up call to the business community, particularly in developed markets like New Zealand, that they need to change the way they engage Millennial talent or risk being left behind.”

Only 28 per cent of Millennials feel their current organisation is making full use of their skills.

More than half, 53 per cent, aspire to become the leader or most senior executive within their current organisation, with a clear ambition gap between Millennials in emerging markets and developed markets.

Sixty five per cent of emerging market based Millennials said they would like to achieve this goal, compared to only 38 per cent in developed markets. This figure was also higher among men.

Additionally, large global businesses hold less appeal for Millennials in developed markets (35 per cent) compared to emerging markets (51 per cent).

Developed market based Millennials are also less inclined (11 per cent) than Millennials in emerging markets (22 per cent) to start their own business.

Other notable findings from the survey include:

• Millennials want to work for organisations with purpose. For six in 10 Millennials, a ‘sense of purpose’ is part of the reason they chose to work for their current employers. Among Millennials who are relatively high users of social networking tools (the ‘super-connected Millennials’), there appears to be even greater focus on business purpose; 77 per cent of this group report their company’s purpose was part of the reason they chose to work there, compared to just 46 per cent of those who are the ‘least connected ‘.

• Technology, media, and telecommunications (TMT) are the most attractive employers. TMT ranked most desirable sector and the one to provide the most valuable skills according to Millennials. Men (24 per cent) were nearly twice as likely as women (13 per cent) to rank TMT as the number one sector to work in. Among broader sectors, leadership is perceived to be strongest in the TMT sector (33 per cent). This percentage was three times higher than second ranked food and beverages (10 per cent), and four times that for third-ranked banking/financial services (8 per cent). In addition, when asked about the businesses that most resonated with Millennials as leaders, Google and Apple top the list of businesses, each selected by 11 per cent of respondents.

• Confidence Gap? Millennial men are more likely to pursue leadership. Millennial men were somewhat more likely to say they would like to secure the ‘top job’ within their organisation than women (59 per cent vs. 47 per cent). Women were also less likely to rank their leadership skills at graduation as strong; 27 per cent of men vs. 21 per cent of women rated this skill as strong. However, when asked what they would emphasise as leaders, women were more likely to say employee growth and development (34 per cent compared to 30 per cent), an area that many Millennials felt was lacking within their current organisations.

• Organisations and higher education must do more to nurture emerging leaders. While overall Millennials did not feel their organisations make full use of their skills (only 28 per cent say their organisation makes full use of their skills), this figure falls significantly among Millennials in developed markets to just 23 per cent. In addition, it falls below 20 per cent in Japan (9 per cent), Turkey (15 per cent), South Korea (17 per cent) and Chile (19 per cent). When asked to estimate the contributions that skills gained in higher education made to achievement of their organisation’s goals, Millennials’ average figure is 37 per cent.

• The changing characteristics of leadership. Today’s Millennials place less value on visible (19 per cent), well-networked (17 per cent), and technically-skilled (17 per cent) leaders. Instead, they define true leaders as strategic thinkers (39 per cent), inspirational (37 per cent), personable (34 per cent) and visionary (31 per cent).

“Millennials want more from business than might have been the case 50, 20 or even 10 years ago,” said Wilson.

“They are sending a very strong signal to the world’s leaders that when doing business, they should do so with purpose.

‘‘The pursuit of this different and better way of operating in the 21st century begins by redefining leadership.”

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