Firms Now Asking What do Millennials Value Most

Firms Now Asking What do Millennials Value Most Firms Now Asking: What do Millennials Value Most? Image Source: Unsplash / Photography: Seth DoyleREGARDLESS of debates about the characteristics of the Millennial Generation versus Generation X, the fact is that millennials (21-34 years) have outstripped Baby Boomers (50-64) and Xers (35-49) in the US workforce, and by 2025 are forecast to account for 75 percent workers globally.  This has major implications for work over the next 10 years, and will require current middle to senior manager to come to grips with the question of what do Millennials value most. We are being borne along on a slow-moving but inexorable wave of change, and the most immediate implications are for the Boomers.As Bloomberg Business recently pointed out, companies from Deloitte to defense contractor BAW Systems, General Motors and General Electric “are scrambling to ensure millions of younger managers from the so-called millennial generationâ€"those born roughly 1981 to 1997â€"are ready to step into leadership roles as baby boomers bow out of the workforce ”.These companies are creating inter-generational relationships in a move espoused by experts such as Chip Espinoza, director of organizational psychology at Concordia University Irvine, who refers to the coming 15 years as the stage for “the greatest transfer of knowledge that’s ever taken place”.NASA has been inspirational. A decade ago, the space agency was faced with the loss of expertise from the lunar landings, due to retirements of senior engineers. Realizing that such knowledge was vital for missions to Mars and other space programs, the agency asked its seniors to share knowledge of the Apollo missions with junior engineers.Values are just as important as smarts, and the last major findings about the millennials were laid out in Mary Meeker’s 2015 report for Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers (KPCB), The Internet Trends 2015 â€" Code Conference: Image Source: LinkedIn / SlideShareThere  are findings in this report that will perhaps be unsurprisingâ€"for example, Smar tphones never leave the side of 87 percent of millennials, day or night; 44 percent use their phone’s camera/video function at least once a day; and 76 percent create pictures and video to post on social media.But for managers who have never given serious consideration to the question of what do Millennials value, the Statista.com chart below illustrated the working benefits most prized by that generation may come as something of a surprise.Data Source: Statista.comHere are the top three implications from such research into the question of what do Millennials value most, in life and in the workplace. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); 1. Training and  DevelopmentTHIS  was placed top of the list by 22 percent of millennials globally, ahead of cash bonuses, family benefits and other individual productivity inducements. Interestingly, this trend also dovetails with the tech-savvyness of Generation Y.Mining data from a variety of US agencies, including the Freelancerâ €™s Union, Upwork, Halogen Software, Cornerstone OnDemand and PWC, KPCB determined that approximately 45 percent of millennials use their personal Smartphones for work (versus 18 percent for older generations), and more than two in five (41 percent) are likely to download applications to use for work, and use their own money to pay for them (vs. 24 percent for older generations).2. Flexible working hoursOF THE 4,364 graduates polled across 75 countries for the 2015 KPCB study, 829 or 19 percent valued flexible working hours most, even above cash bonuses.Using the other data sources identified above KPCB found as many as 20 percent identifying as “night owls”, working outside normal business hours; 38 percent freelancing (vs. 32 percent among the 35+ age group), and 32 percent expecting the future of work to entail “mainly flexible hours”.Millennials also accounted for the lion’s share of on-demand workers in the US during 2014. The breakdown was as follows: Millennials (21 -33) 44 percent; Gen X (34-49) 32 percent; Boomers (50-67) 19 percent; and Matures (68+) 5 percent. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); 3. Cash bonusesTHIRD of the three working benefits valued by millennials most is the cash bonus.Among the fascinating facts to emerging from close reading of the KPCB report is a possible ‘perception disconnect’ between millennials and their managers as to the most important indicator of career success.Mining data from a 2011 US Career Advisory Board study, KPCB shows that 30 percent of millennials valued “meaningful work” most (against just 11 percent of managers who thought this would be the leading indicator of success); and only 27 percent valued “high pay” most (against the 48 percent of managers).On almost every front, the millennials run counter to the expectations of managersâ€"sense of accomplishment (24 percent millennials versus 11 percent managers); challenging work (10 percent versus 8 percent); high level of self-expression (6 percent versus 9 percent); and high level of responsibility (3 percent versus 12 percent)It’s these latter findings that are perhaps most significant. As another package of data from this report (sourced from Upwork’s 2015 Millennial Majority Workforce Report) confirms, hiring managers perceive millennial workers to be more open to change, more creative, more adaptable and more entrepreneurial, and yet… more narcissistic, more money-driven, less confident and less team-oriented, the latter qualities quite at odds with how millennials self-identify.At the very least, it indicates that the inter-generational relationship-building approach of larger US firms,  who actively  enquire into the issue of what do Millennials value most, points the best way forward as the Boomers bow out and millennials move upward.