Are You Successfully Embracing Millennials?

Millennials, those between the ages of 18 and early 30s, are coming into the workplace in full force and the business world must adopt. They are not only your future employees but will be the face of your customers and even suppliers.

They are approximately 80 million strong and spend $600 billion annually. And while they were certainly influenced by Generation Y and brought up with technology as part of their life, they are different in many areas. Today’s organizations need to embrace millennials and understand what motivates them if they want to be successful in the future. Trying to mold them into an old-school business model is a recipe for disaster.

Forcing a typical 9-to-5 work week, insisting their job is their priority and talking down to them will not work. Because of their tech savviness, millennials are confident and emboldened. They value a work/life balance more than their previous generations. Despite what may seem to be a non-serious business attitude they can be extremely loyal under the right conditions and are more willing to blur the lines between work and play because of their always-on, always-connected lifestyle.

But to embrace millennials and motivate them within your own organization and successfully work with them on the client side, you must understand their values and what is important to them.

To say they are comfortable with technology and depend on it is an understatement. Approximately 75 percent of millennials have created a social networking profile and 20 percent have posted videos of themselves online, according to The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s “The Millennial Generation Review.”

Also, 60 percent of them now get their news and information from the Internet and 80 percent sleep with their cellphones next to their bed, according to the report. They are digitally oriented and don’t like to be disconnected. That can be a tremendous asset.

They are making major life decisions later—getting married, buying a home, starting a family, buying insurance—but value their personal time. They are a bit disenchanted and fully understand the economic challenges ahead and believe they will be worse off than their parents. They also could be the first generation in more than 100 years to see their life span decline from the previous generation, according to the report.

Their behavior reflects this. They embrace social networking such as Instagram and Facebook to see what their friends are doing and to keep pace with their interests. They will then check out Twitter and other online feeds for news trending. Again, personal lives matter.

Despite making bigger decisions later in life, their priorities are to have a successful marriage, be a good parent and have job security, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce report. Understand, however, that job security to millennials in a bit different than previous generations in that they are looking to be more entrepreneurial. That means whatever job they hold, they need to feel they are making a difference, have a growth path and their ideas are heard.

So, as an employer, you need to embrace the lifestyles and values of millennials because they do have real goals and objectives for their lives. If you are facing them as a customer you need to treat them with respect and not talk down to them just because they are young. Remember, they have unlimited access to information, use social networking to get and give recommendations and don’t see the traditional salesperson as providing value. Adapt the way you approach them and you will be successful.