Designing EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE for Millennials

Employee experience is a concept that includes all the distinctive components that impacts one’s thinking about the work environment. When an employee undergoes positive experience in the workplace that creates a direct link to employee retention. Whereas, negative employee experience is directly linked to high employee turnover. Which means, when employees are satisfied with the factors relating to workplace like the work environment, facilities, career opportunities, organisational culture, attitude of the employers towards them etc, enhances positive work experience which in turn helps in retaining the resources without any added efforts. Whereas, when the company fails to provide such positive experience, the employees feel demotivated and show no interest towards the work and organisation indirectly creates a negative experience which may lead to high turnover. Researches have shown that the organisations that concentrate on employees’ wellbeing only can succeed in the future.

Designing Employee experience for the Millennials need an understanding of what works for them. Since I work in an environment where most of them are millennials including me, I can best relate to the concept and can understand what exactly runs in their minds.

We conducted a survey at Amazecodes with our Millennial workforce and here are some key takeaways that I would like to share.

Unlike earlier generations, Millennials do not plan to stick long in a single organization:

– When asked how long they would commit to a company, it was found that around 73% of the employees chose 3-5 years. In fact, 3-5 years can be considered good considering the fact that as per recent studies Millennials are labelled as “The Job-Hopping Generation.”

– Millennials change jobs, not just for monetary benefits – the benefits of “job hopping” can offer a diversity of experience. Specifically, in the technology industry, diversity of platforms, programming languages, and technology can be an asset. Make sure there are ample learning opportunities for your millennial employees.

Top 3 Key Motivators at workplace – Appreciation, Work culture and Learning opportunities.

– When asked on what are the most key motivating factors – Appreciation topped the list (63%), followed by Work Environment (58%) and Learning opportunities (58%). Compensation (42%) was fourth on the list. So, we know what would make millennials stick longer in an organization.

Flexibility and Autonomy at Work is very important for Millennials

– Checking with our millennials on what they would find most frustrating – the lack of flexibility and autonomy at work were mentioned as reasons that could frustrate them most. They get frustrated when they don’t have much control and autonomy over the work they do. We should give them the chance to showcase their skills and plan tasks without trying to micromanage them. That is when they feel the company values them and the trust gets built.

–  95% of our millennials agreed that flexible work hours increased their productivity.

–  84% mentioned that autonomy in the workplace has an influence on their performance.

–Reward them often and personalization of reward matters.

– Employees said they were motivated to work harder and stay at their jobs longer when they received appreciation for their work. So, the mantra is to recognize them often and make sure the recognition is personalized for this “me-me” generation!

– Learning opportunity was the next best type of reward that our respondents mentioned. Millennials value opportunities for growth, so they also expect ongoing learning in the workplace

Get their feedback often and make sure to work on it.

– The work culture/ work environment is not always what the management perceives it to be. Rather it has to do with what the employees feel about the work environment. Hence regular feedback from the employees becomes important. Here is the word association exercise with our employees looked like.

Conclusion:

As competition continues to get the best talent, businesses are challenged to buckle up for the employee experience game. With millennials comprising the majority of today’s workforce, it’s more important to understand them and design employee experience programme accordingly. Doing so can help other employees improve their performance and ultimately strengthen your company’s culture as well.

At Amazecodes, we have been working towards achieving positive employee experience and to a large extent we have been able to build a high trust, positive and productive work culture.