Hiring Millennials and Gen Z: Will They Stay?

Many organizations are searching for employees who represent the millennial or generation Z population, but if they hire them, will they stay?

Questions like this are good. They help us to focus and be better prepared to make good decisions. Many organizations desire to on-board employees representing both generations but often they report difficulties in finding suitable candidates or challenges in having them stay once they are hired. Generalizing on this subject is tricky because each industrial sector, geographic location, and organization size has an impact on the data.

Let’s consider just two points:

• Millennials are staying longer with their early career employer (Whitehouse Report 2014).
• Enrollment in 2 and 4 year colleges has been volatile (up and down) since 2010.

These points are important because many informal reports suggest that many who get hired stick around only from a few minutes to a few months and then take off for a different job; and that many are college educated and as such only accept the highest paying, no manual labor white collar job opportunities. This data set might support a different hypothesis.

Research data behind the millennial and generation Z population is complex. Millennial behavior has been studied and trends exist, but much of the trending has numerous other factors involved which only add to the confusion. Some of these factors include rural vs. urban living, home ownership, and marriage and family, and this is just naming a few.

It is worth mentioning that there appears to be a trend with the most recent generations preferring to relocate to more urban settings leaving businesses in smaller rural communities feeling like they have a lack of choices. The emerging generations might choose to start their own families and become homeowners later in life, and as such they might not share the same style of community commitment as those generations who have come before them. This is not about right or wrong, it is an indication of differences.

Will They Stay?

Complex issues sometimes have to be broken down into simple terms. Organizations need to make the best choices possible for their workforce. There will always be trade-offs with skills, compensation, and other employee value based factors. So how can organizations improve their millennial and generation Z turnover ratio?

• Hire Smart. Use interviewing skills and techniques to make the best choices for your organizational needs and location. Having a strategy that includes competency models and employee demographic data that illustrates the characteristics of the ideal candidate are best.
• Cultural Values. Value the most recent generations, emphasize this with actions and a well-illustrated culture. Many are eager to earn an honest living, but they’ll seek to be respected and not feel as though they are being inappropriately used.
• Mentor. Build and encourage mentor opportunities with role model employees of a similar generation. Often organizations will attempt to form connections for mentor opportunities by pairing mentees with role models of a different generation, while this might be somewhat situational, this is often not as effective as someone within the same generation.

My experiences working with many different organizations in both rural and urban settings indicate that organizations that lack a specific strategy for on-boarding the most recent generations are the same organizations that struggle the most to have them stay. In contrast, organizations that have a strategy and follow it are most likely the same organizations with a culture that is acceptable across the entire generational framework.

Hiring decisions are certainly complex and not every person (employee or employer) will actually deliver exactly as they present throughout the interview process. You’ll never get a guarantee that every employee is going to stay, and perhaps not every employee you’ll want to keep.

Generational Denial

One last thing worth mentioning, occasionally I encounter organization leaders who believe that generational differences are not real and that the generational problem has been going on since the industrial revolution. If the leadership team cannot agree on the problem, it is unlikely that a solution will be found.

Create a strategy that builds a culture that achieves your desired results.

– DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and coach that specializes in helping businesses and individuals accelerate their leadership, their team, and their success. He is the author of the newly released book, Forgotten Respect, Navigating A Multigenerational Workforce. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

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