Positive Employee Relations with Millennials
The differences in what motivates and satisfies millennials versus baby boomers are explored in this resource. Millennials are now the largest demographic segment in the workforce, outnumbering Gen Xers and Boomers. Thus, outdated performance systems will not serve modern employees and organizations. This text explores millennials' values and characteristics and their relationship with management.
Relationship of millennials to their supervisors
Millennials view strong relationships with supervisors to be foundational for negotiating their roles initially, as well as for their long-term satisfaction in the organization.
For millennials to achieve higher job satisfaction, an open communication environment is favored.
Millennials would share information, convey bad news, evaluate job performance regularly, create a supportive climate, solicit input, and make appropriate disclosures.
Millennials are unlikely to accept an organizational policy that information is communicated on a "need-to know basis". Millennial employees disagree with their supervisors when it comes to the communication of information. While supervisors might prefer to tell employees only the information they feel employees must know in order to complete a task, millennial employees on the other hand prefer to be included in the decision-making process or at least fully informed of how the process occurred. Furthermore, supervisors tend to feel more comfortable discussing information with other supervisors than with their immediate subordinates. In addition, supervisors usually also stress on giving their subordinates instructions that relate to the task without focusing much on the sociological and emotional aspect of communicating the information.
In addition, challenges might arise in the organization due to differences between generations or cohorts, and differences in the ways these generations prefer to be managed. If these preferences are not given the right amount of attention, they might grow to become large enough to be able to hinder organizational success. Furthermore, one of the leading reasons that drive employees to quit an organization is the poor management of the supervisor or the supervisor's management that is not compatible with the millennial employees.
Moreover, supervisors belonging to the baby boomers and generation X generations need to take into consideration the differences between them and employees belonging to the millennials' generation. Moreover, they should actively attempt to create an environment that fits millennials, challenges them, and motivates them in order to produce the best quality of work and the best results.