4 Ways To Make A Millennial Employee Stay An Extra 6 months

They are nearly impossible to keep around- about a third of Millennials today switch jobs every thirteen months. Interesting enough though, in the same study, Pew Research found that Millennials have just as high turnover rate as their previous Gen Xers. However, unlike the Gen Xers working environment, quite a few new tips and tricks have developed to keep employees around. Since there are some many reasons why someone would leave, each reasons has its own unique remedy. With that said, here are a few tips to help Millennial employees stick around for an extra six months:

Switching Them to 100% Remote

Situation: They are leaving because they want to travel to a different city or country. This could be for family reasons or simply enjoying youth without having binding attachments.

Implementation:

• Provide them the 100% remote offer that increase remote contribution over time.

• If they accept, switch them to Performance Driven from Facetime Driven management.

• Cover expectations and guidelines for their remote work.

• Disclose what situations get them fired and promoted.

Example:  A financial startup company that I worked for, Sindeo, had a lead engineer who wanted to explore the world while also keeping his job. Management decided to keep him, so they switched him to a remote employee but dropped his salary in order to compensate for the change in living circumstance. This involved management having to get more clear on deliverables and which meetings the lead engineer had to attend. Guidelines had to be put down and expectations explicit.

Offer a Match

Situation: Another company offered your employee more pay.

Implementation:

• If you can afford match the offer that they are receiving, match it. Switching jobs and environments is an extremely stressful event that most employees would avoid if they could.

• Look into extra benefits, more flexible time, anything that their manager might be aware of that the individual values.

Example: A small company in San Francisco, StarX, had an engineer receive another company offer after working at StarX for 14 months. The offer was more than what the employee was currently getting paid, so the company offered a salary bump just under the offer and offered PTO which made the employee stay.

Switching Teams

Situation: They feel that their team is a toxic working environment or that they feel that are not learning enough.

Implementation:

• Have them rotate to a different department in their same position where there skills can be useful.

• Have them take a horizontal career change in the same department.

Example: A Software Engineer at a tech firm wanted to make the jump to Product Management but did not see the opportunity in their current department. Once their manager found out about this desire for a career change, they gave the employee the offer of switching departments to one that needed help with Product Management. The employee stayed and made the successful jump increasing their company tenure.

PTO or Part Time

Situation: Employees feel burned out by the pace in the workplace leading to possible turnover. 

Implementation:

• Switching them from a full time employee to part time.

• Have them take advantage of their PTO offering.

Example: A Silicon Valley startup was overworking employees which led to many of them quitting. In order to compensate with this unfortunate event, the startup started moving full time employees to part time. While many employee refused this offer, others took advantage of it and each employee stayed at the company for at least an extra six months leaving time for backfill.

At the end of the day, it really matters how much you want to keep an employee and what you are willing to do. Some of these examples may seem a bit much but it all depends on individual’s company contribution.