Millennials can be a huge asset for companies. It was a call out to me reading Wayne Speechly’s article (https://www.linkedin.com/in/speechly/) about employee’s engagement and ways of working models (read his LinkedIn Post).
As I commented on the article, each individual has to first recover in order to be able to project her/his best back to the company. Different space, new desk (sometimes an improvised desk), uncomfortable chair, not enough light, oh where is my big screen, background noise, no more physical limit between work and private stuff, how do I get more toilet paper, omg I love falafel.
Millennials may be the generation to best adapt to new situations
They are most likely to value work-life balance when choosing a job. Also, at home, they switch from work to private activities and back to work.
They are likely to be climbing the corporate ladder rather than changing jobs often.
My take is that companies should promote Millennial-to-GenX interactions in order to leverage the ease Millennials have to adapt to this work-from-home situation. GenX are senior folks, managers, directors or executives who are leading the transformation of companies. Getting inspirations from Millennials how they deal with confinement challenges could be a good way to re-ignite companies.
As example, Millennials could show to GenX workers how they manage their morning routine:
- Millennial: wake up, shower, coffee, get dressed, get a breathe of fresh air and then start your computer .
vs.
- GenX: wake up, emails on phone in bed, rush to coffee machine in pijamas, take the odd call from a colleague 5 time zones away, shower, get dressed and being already late to a Webex call.
This being said, younger workers feel insecure about sharing advice with more experienced colleagues. Companies should encourage Millennial-to-GenX interactions. Above all, using internal social networks will engage more junior workers with the rest of the company. Tools like Yammer or corporate collaboration tools (Microsoft Teams or Slack). For example, there are a lot of cool Giphys or Stickers in Teams that can help break the ice.
Read more insights about customer experience on my blog posts.
Article posted on LinkedIn on 8th April 2020.
