Companies must adapt to a new generation of workers, especially the millennials. These are no longer seeking a job with a list of tasks to be accomplished. They want engagement, a life experience. How do you trim your job offer to speak to their head… as well as to their heart?
Generation Y will eventually invade the labour market. It is they who will gradually replace those who have left for retirement, or who will create the new jobs of tomorrow.
But to make your job offer attractive to them it is first necessary to understand the millennials. And as Joëlle Charpentier, president of Charpentier DO, indicates on the website of the Ordre des conseillers en ressources humaines agréés, although there was a time when we were talking about the scarcity of labour and intergenerationals, today it’s more a question of completely revising the organization of labour based on millennials.
When time is no longer money
If there is one thing that distinguishes generation X from generation Y, it is its relationship with time and money.
While a worker from generation X will tell you that time is money, this relationship is different for millennials. Those from 20 to 35 years old rather want to make good use of these limited resources.
“For them, it is not sufficient to have a salary and talk about responsibilities. This generation wants to identify with the company’s values and to have a real job experience,” says Antoine Devinat, CRHA and founder of Leadership DNA.
Even their overall view of work is not the same – goodbye to schedules forcing them to work 9 to 5, welcome to jobs that are stimulating, creative and, especially, flexible.
Don’t forget that the members of this generation are also graduates and ultraconnected. Social media are part of their life. And if they have a bad work experience one of these days, they will not fail to report it on the internet.
Working with the company’s branding
Certain companies are more attractive than others. Today, just having a good logo is no longer enough. “Each company must be able to say what they are, what their mission is, their vision, their values. It’s what we call employer branding”, explains Antoine Devinat.
However, finding its colours requires a certain amount of work upstream. “When recruiting, the company’s colours must be easy to understand. We need to be able to identify ourselves. And if we want to attract employees of the millennial generation, our brand must use the same language,” adds the human resources consultant.
Antoine Devinat however warns employers who would like to go through this exercise just to attract manpower, “It’s especially important not to sell them a message that is not genuine. Some employers have fallen into this trap. It’s important to deliver an accurate picture of the situation compared to the position posted, with the good and bad sides.”