As Baby Boomers increasingly leave the workforce over the next decade for retirement, the next generation of workers will need to take their place. In past blog posts, we’ve discussed many methods of attracting Millennial workers to manufacturing. But that’s only half the puzzle.
Once a Millennial workforce is convinced of the benefits of a career in manufacturing, then you also have to worry about labour retention for that workforce. For example, automation can be a double-edged sword for manufacturing. Automation can open up exciting opportunities for young people to work on the frontiers of technology, but the world of work is also changing rapidly. Manufacturing trends have to compete with many other industries that will be changed by technology, including some that will appear to be more glamorous.Millennials tend to job-hop. Although there is an argument that young people in general have tended to job-hop, no matter what generation they belong to, there is still evidence that Millennials are particularly affected by this trend. In one Gallup poll, 21% of surveyed Millennials said they had switched jobs in the past year.
If you think you may be able to bring in Millennial workers but not retain them, here are some tips:
Labour Retention Tips: Understand the Importance of Exit Interviews
Try not to think negatively about exit interviews. If you accept that, no matter what you do, you will lose employees eventually, you can use the opportunity of an exiting employee to get an honest assessment of what they did and didn’t like about your workplace. Criticism can sting, but it’s far better to get an honest view of what workers are expecting, hoping for, or disappointed by than to be lost without any clue why your workers are leaving.
Offer Worthwhile Compensation
Of course, like anyone else, Millennials want fair pay for the work they do. But there are other considerations as well. Many Millennials watched their parents struggle through the last recession. Millennials know how, in this world of evolving tech and social media, a new phenomenon can pull a MySpace in a second: a hot new career can end up nearly irrelevant in just a few short years. The gig economy has left Millennials with interesting opportunities, but often ones lacking in benefits. Show Millennials how you can provide long-term job stability, and offer them a package that will help them save and pay for dental and other healthcare, and you will encourage young people to stay.
Invest in Employee Potential
Employees who feel that you have invested significant resources to their career development, even when you might risk losing them, are likely to be more loyal to your company. One of the easiest ways to meaningfully invest in the future of your employees is through training. Area9 Lyceum, for example, is an e-learning platform that can train your employees faster and better than traditional training methods. Inefficient training takes your employees away from their jobs while not improving their skills, but adaptive learning reduces time away from work while improving employee knowledge. When employees see the improved results, they will feel glad that you invested time and resources into their career development and be less likely to leave your company.
Get Ideas for Retaining and Interacting with Millennial Talent
External links are provided as informational resources only and are not necessarily endorsed by Ontario East.References:
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/231587/millennials-job-hopping-generation.aspx
