Seventy-five per cent of the global workforce will be millennials by 2030, and they have a greater need for timely, direct feedback from their employers, via easy to access technology. This is significant to any Board, especially those comprising mostly “baby boomer” members, who, according to recent surveys, really ought to wake up to the challenges that already are before them.There is at least an 8-10% difference in opinions between baby boomers and millennials, when it comes to employee development, training, advancement and communication needs. The Society For Human Resource Management (SHRM) listed the following 4 priorities for millennial job satisfaction:-

Priority 1 – 66% require respectful employee treatment, at all levels in the company

Priority 2 – 65% rate compensation

Priority 3 – 61 % rate benefits

Priority 4 – 58% rate job security

So millennials want inclusion and straight talking, combined with the flexibility of freelance, with the benefits that go along with full time working. Expectations of one of our biggest assets, the employee, are evolving, and so must Boards. Gone are the days when people commit to an organisation for life, and where money and status are the key motivational tools. It seems a bigger pay packet or a fancy car may be a short-term incentive, but it won’t necessarily motivate millenials in the long term. In my experience motivation comes from a feeling of being engaged in meaningful work, and where people can connect to a company’s principles and objectives. In short, employees need to feel part of the whole, to be valued, and know that their views and ideas are being acted on, by their line managers and their executive team.

On a recent trip to Europe I picked up an in flight magazine and stumbled across a thought-provoking article on employee engagement, supported by findings from the 2017 Deloitte Global Human Capital Report. The following stark statistics about millennials came up in the summary pages, which encouraged me to read on:

• 1 in 5 class their work life balance as poor and want to work more flexibly and from home
• 1 in 4 have considered starting a business as a result of watching a film or TV show
• 1 in 3 in the UK feel that their employers do not support career development

Unsurprisingly employee engagement is one of the hottest topics on the Board agenda in decades. According to recent studies happy employees who are enjoying modern offices and funky perks, may not be as productive as engaged employees. So what is the difference? Genuinely engaged employees are motivated employees. Motivation is hard to cultivate, as it is about developing an environment where people can be themselves, take pleasure and pride in their jobs and feel connected to the company’s values and goals. If a company can reach this “optimal employee engagement state” then it can expect to see up to a 30% improvement in its results. This opportunity is too big to ignore.

So how does an organisation go about fostering such dynamics? Boards need to invest in taking time to fully understand their business’ values and goals, then cascade and communicate them regularly to the staff – and do this well.

There are a myriad different ways to communicate goals and key messages electronically, but the key to success is the follow-up process. Management teams should make contact on a weekly basis with their teams (walk the talk, as they say).

Aligning recruitment to the values of the business is vital, because if employer and employee are not aligned, deploying “best in class” training, motivation, communication and incentive schemes is unlikely to succeed with mis-matched recruits.

Finally, we come to the all-important employee survey. Many companies conduct an annual survey, some even biannually. Sassy function leaders will back this annual survey up with monthly mini surveys too, to get closer to their staff and implement small changes regularly, making big differences to everyday working life. From an employee’s point of view the questions in the surveys are very important. They have to be relevant and personal enough to engage , whilst giving employees options to provide personalised feedback. I have often seen significant time and money assigned to the aforementioned surveys, only to see failure in the interpretation of the data and poor senior team communication of the results and their meaning, to the workforce. Sadly, the follow-up actions, generated to embed the necessary changes promised by the top team, are frequently neither embedded nor reviewed either. Boards should integrate these actions into every manager’s annual performance review to get the results it needs to move with the changes in the workforce.

Deloitte put it perfectly in their 2017 study– Boards may have been getting their employee priorities back to front in the past, and need to reverse them: – “put employees first, they in turn take care of our customers and they in turn take care of our shareholders”.

Food for thought I think whilst navigating choppy Brexit waters.