The Top Four Things Millennials want from the Workplace
Blog Post
Nov. 1, 2016
One of the most rewarding things about running a business is having the opportunity to help talented young people grow, develop and go on to accomplish big things within your organization. I’m proud that we are the kind of place where young people can build their careers, and that’s why Gensler is among Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work and on Forbes’s “America’s Best Employers for 2016” list. Growing talented professionals is a focus of our firm and an area that we actively invest in, and we are proud of our ever growing Millennial workforce.
Data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows us that Millennials have supplanted Baby Boomers as the largest percentage of the American workforce. Over the next 30 years Millennials and the generations to follow will run our corporations, governments and institutions. And, while the editorial attention paid to Millennials is typically centered on their unique attributes and tendencies, I am impressed by their creativity, tenacity and openness — characteristics that define the outstanding talent of any generation. The media narrative that has emerged too often lacks that context, and too often presents an oversimplified viewpoint of Millennials that misses the mark. Young people today might be more social media savvy than their predecessors, but Gensler’s 2016 Workplace Survey indicates that Millennial values and preferences are far more aligned with those of their parents and older siblings when it comes to common attitudes towards work, the workplace and organizational culture then the media generally portrays.
Instead, Gensler’s Workplace Survey demonstrates just how ‘normal’ Millennial workplace attitudes actually are. We found no statistically significant generational differences when it comes to the types of amenities people prefer (proximity to food tops all lists), the amount of time people prefer to spend collaborating at work, the importance of having the ability to focus, the importance of organizational purpose or the importance of an organization’s reputation for innovation among our respondents. Our recent research into innovative workplaces found that no significant differences in innovation scores have emerged across the Baby Boomer, Gen X or Millennial generations, and that there is not a generational difference in preferences towards working in urban, suburban or rural locations. American Millennials seem to share the same broader cultural orientation toward work and the workplace that their older family members have.
Another common perception shared by a large number of managers and opinion writers is that young people today are more prone to changing jobs and are less loyal early in their careers than previous generations. Looking at aggregated employment data from the 1980s to today, it’s clear that people between the ages of 25 to 34 have consistently switched jobs and careers at about the same rate over the past 36 years. What makes this issue so critical today is that the size of the rising Millennial generation is so much larger than Generation X which directly preceded it, and thus the percentage of a company’s workforce in the throes of its “job hopping” stage is the largest that it has been since the Baby Boomers were of a similar age.
There has been a striking increase in the amount of job-hopping done by Gen Xers relative to previous generations — a trend that is especially acute for Gen X men. This increased rate of job-hopping for established, mid-career professionals, coupled with the normal amount of career changes we’re seeing from a naturally uncommitted 24–34 year old demographic, is creating more instability in every organization’s workforce, and this has helped given rise to the myth of the hyper-itinerant Millennial worker.
A growing body of research suggests that there are ways to stem the tide of young people leaving their jobs. To get there, it’s important to identify the primary drivers leading people to leave their current organizations. Deloitte finds that 25 percent of Millennials want to leave their organization by the end of 2016, 44 percent want to leave in two years and 75 percent plan to leave within the next four years. Entry level Millennials are particularly mobile, with a full 70 percent actually leaving their first job within two years of starting. Not surprisingly, individuals that perceive fewer opportunities for growth or a lack of purpose in their work are more likely to want to leave their organizations. Experiencing high turnover is costly for firms, and, as more established professionals can attest, frequent career interruptions can make it difficult for Millennials to gain real knowledge. Ironically, looking for new opportunities outside of one’s current organization can have a stifling effect on a striving young person’s long-term professional development.
From a professional development standpoint, short tenure cycles can limit both skill development and long-term professional relationship building; both are essential for later career success. Early career job changes can be akin to changing schools every one to two years before completing an education. Progress can be made through course completion and attaining degrees, but the frequent changes curtail a full return on the experience. The best course correction measures that organizations can use to break the cycle of short-term tenure all involve creating a culture that values people and making up-front investments in young talent. Workplace design is not the only approach that an organization should prioritize along these lines, but it can serve as a powerful catalyst for bringing this kind of broader change.
Gensler’s 2016 Workplace Survey identified several powerful workplace design solutions that can help an organization build a connection between people and their organizational mission, give people a sense of empowerment, and provide tools for success. These design solutions are also strongly correlated with making organizations more creative and innovative, which are huge priorities for Millennials. Here are the four areas we recommend focusing on:
1. Connect the workplace to your organizational mission. Having a sense of purpose in your work isn’t just a crazy idea that idealistic young people came up with, it makes a tangible difference on driving creativity and innovation. Our Workplace Survey shows that high performing workplaces are strongly aligned with their organization’s mission and values, helping every single person understand why they’re there, why their work is important and what they’re trying to achieve. Creating a sense of purpose that can be experienced on a daily basis is also a great way to help young people feel like they’re gaining meaning from their daily lives, and the workplace is where they spend the majority of their waking hours so it’s an obvious place to start.
2. Invest in the individual.High performing workplaces have better designed and more functional individual workspaces, and this is equally true for workplaces with an open office floorplan and an enclosed office plan. The most functional workspaces have strong noise management and enable people to conduct their focused, individual work without being disturbed. These high performing workspaces help individuals control their environments without limiting their ability to work collaboratively inside or outside of teams. Making this kind of investment across an organization demonstrates that everyone’s work is important, and it can enable young people to feel like they are able to accomplish more and demonstrate mastery and leadership in the process.
3. Diversify group work spaces. Top-preforming employees have more access to a greater variety of workspaces inside and outside of the office, particularly for non-focus activities. They are also less likely to report having to work in the same space, and much less likely to socialize at their desks. Having a diversity of spaces is also key to expanding access to people and resources. More common areas like coffee bars, cafeterias, small group meeting rooms and conference rooms mean that more spontaneous interactions can occur, and important conversations can take place away from work areas where they are often disruptive.
4. Empower the whole community. Every organization can benefit from expanding choice and autonomy across its entire organizational footprint. This means giving people the flexibility to work in the spaces that are most attuned to the task at hand. Coincidentally, Deloitte identified this kind of flexibility as a top Millennial priority. Gensler also found that top innovators like having this kind of autonomy and choice, and that these high performing employees work away from the office 26 percent of the time.
In addition to helping young people remain engaged, making smart and powerful design interventions along these lines helps drive organizational success and innovation. Gensler’s Workplace Survey found that top innovators work in the highest performing workplaces. This means that the Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, who have no statistically significant differences with their Millennial colleagues, are benefiting from a greater investment in high performance workplace design as well.