Working with Millennials: Using Emotional Intelligence and Strategic Compassion to Motivate the Next Generation of Leaders by Marc Robertson

Author:Marc Robertson [Robertson, Marc]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781440844133
Publisher: ABC-CLIO
Published: 2016-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Getting Gold Out of Them

They Will Kill for You if You Demonstrate Real Concern

As we’ve learned, the main reason people work is ultimately to be acknowledged—money is not the primary motivation. A lot of people are shocked when they hear this, but it’s absolutely true, and many studies have proven this to be so. David Rock and Jeffry Schwartz, in particular, demonstrate from a neuroscience perspective that this is a fact.1 Money is useful as a means to attract or retain employees, but it doesn’t influence behavior.

The building of meaningful relationships with your employees, based on care and consideration, is what matters most. Yet for many senior executives even acknowledging people can be a challenging thing to do. As a leader, you certainly need to understand yourself, but moreover you must come to understand the people working for you. What they want, most of all, is to trust you—they want stability and security. And they want you to be confident in the responsibilities you’ve entrusted them with. Millennial employees, in particular, will always respond to such challenges because they want to advance—they want a promotion, they want to make more money, and they want to be valued.

Millennial workers are already motivated to achieve because they were raised to seize opportunities to leave an impact, or an impression, on this world—or, more specifically, in their respective local environments or workplaces. Are your people happy? Are they satisfied? Do you even know the answers to these questions? If you don’t, then you’re not doing a good enough job as a leader. You have to be aware of your employees, and you need to initiate communications with them until you find out exactly what makes each of them tick. Just because a worker smiles when he or she sees you doesn’t mean he or she is happy—your workers may just be doing that because that’s what they think you want to see, and they’re doing it to save their jobs.

So if it’s not primarily the money they’re paid, why do people love their jobs? Well, for one, happy workers are surrounded by people they like working with and for. It’s your job, as a leader, to nurture such an environment. If you help to stimulate happiness and camaraderie among your reports, you will go a long way toward ensuring profitability, efficiency, and low turnover in your workplace.

Another important factor in workplace satisfaction is the freedom for workers to be creative, to improvise, and to not feel threatened if they make mistakes. Of course, you can’t tolerate too many mistakes in a workplace, but there’s a certain measure of autonomy that Millennials expect. Consider how to give them a long enough leash, so to speak, to express opinions, devise solutions, and be personally invested in the most meaningful company projects.

Millennials, of course, deeply value the quality of a company’s business culture. This is more than offering free snacks and foosball tables—it’s about creating a work environment that’s transparent, with strong avenues of communication

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