Understanding the Millennials Part 2

18 April 2016, 17:06 pm
Speciality Bites by Paul Hargreaves

If you have read previous posts, you will know that I have spent some time recently trying to work out what makes “millennials” tick both in terms of working out consumer trends but also in terms of harnessing their energy and know-how as an employer

The topic seems to suddenly be trending as books are being released and the subject is on the timetable at the Food and Drink Expo. I was actually one of the panellists but got dropped in place of someone famous, but possibly with less knowledge on the subject!

In fact at the Farm Shop & Deli Live theatre, the subject of one of the sessions where I am a panellist, as originally on the subject of employing millennials, but is now called “Achieve Staff Success with Nigel Barden”. This seems to imply Nigel might be seen in a business like yours soon, which I very much doubt! “Achieve staff success” is a rather bland title so I hope to bring some life to it, by redefining success. Is success simply recruiting people who will make you more money?  Not in my view. Success should be equally judged by the development and fulfilment of those who work for you. Are they better skilled and more fulfilled than they were before? Actually by focussing on being a “good” employer will often have a positive effect on your bottom line anyway.  No coincidence. Happy employees = profitability.

And the key to being a growing 21st century employer is by harnessing the huge potential of the millennial generation, who are very different in how they want to be employed and managed than Generation X and Baby Boomers.  It is the latter who often end up misunderstanding Millennials most. With this in mind I found on-line the other day: “Take our 14 item quiz and I will tell you how Millennial you are on a scale of 1 to 100”.  So I did, finishing only a few points below the Millennial cut-off. In fact if I had said “yes” to both having body piercings and tattoos, I would have been over the line. Don’t worry kids, if you are reading this, it isn’t going to happen! Well not before the show this week anyway!

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