Staffing Smart Series: post 5 of 6

Success factor #4: Create the structured experience millennials want

While examining what’s key to hiring millennials into hard-to-staff jobs, we encountered a surprising insight. They want to know exactly when they’ll start working, and more importantly, when they will finish. This desire for structure is one of the most interesting lessons we’ve learned about working with millennials while running the Mobilize program.

The need for structure is based on FOMO. Never heard of it? It’s Fear of Missing Out – and this generation has been formed by it, with people’s social media “highlight reels” as the motivator. They often pass on decisions because they’re afraid they’ll miss the next big thing. In our focus groups, people talked about not going out on dates or attending parties because they didn’t want to miss something potentially awesome that might develop organically later on.

If millennials can’t commit to a night out or a weekend away, how can we expect them to commit to a job?

The truth is, as businesses, we can’t sell millennials on old ways of thinking. They’re hesitant to commit to long-term jobs because they might miss out on the amazing thing that’s just around the corner. As employers and businesses, we need to adapt to this mindset when hiring millennials, and to a millennial work ethic that’s different from what we’re used to. Whatever commitments we require must fit these criteria, with time ranges that don’t go past the “anxiety zone” – a point that’s too far in the future for them to comprehend.

Hiring millennials? Think modular.

Any commitment you ask millennials to make needs to be modular, with a clear start and end date. If employees don’t love what they’re doing, they only have a few months until they can move on to the next thing, and then a few more months until (worst case scenario) they go home. That way, it isn’t a scary, permanent commitment.

Short-term placements, long-term gain.

The Mobilize program is modular to make hiring millennials and working with them easier. Mobilizers get seasonal placements, working in different roles, for different employers, in different locations. Chunking jobs into limited-time experiences offers them a chance to test out the waters, and to appeal to the millennial need to always be looking for the next best thing. Of course, if they want to stay in a specific role, we definitely encourage that – a number of participants have returned to previous placements for full-time, permanent work.

This is the fifth post in our Staffing Smart blog series. In recent posts we’ve talked about millennials’ need for adventure, desire to learn on the job, and requirement for career advancement.

Next up in our series on recruiting Canadian youth: Why millennials want a hassle-free experience and how you can provide it.

Want to know more about how Mobilize can help with hiring millennials? Get in touch with us!