Young staff take stand on values

Millennials asking for what they think the market can give, writes Tao Lin.

Significant numbers of younger workers would refuse to work for companies that did not share their values, researchers have found.

This is a finding from the 2016 Deloitte Millennial survey, which took into account 7700 responses from 29 countries.

Nine out of 10 millennials surveyed believed the success of a business should be measured by more than just financial performance.

More than 50 per cent of respondents said they ruled out working for organisations based on company values.

Deloitte manager in human capital Dan Howell says this may make millennials seem entitled, which is a common criticism of that generation, but they are just asking for what they think the market is ready to give.

‘‘They’re a generation with opportunities and with opportunity comes the greater ability to be a bit more opinionated and a bit more pushy.’’

Although New Zealand was not included in the pool of respondents, human resources (HR) expert Samantha Gadd believes Kiwis aren’t that different.

Gadd recently rebranded her HR consultancy from HR Shop to Humankind to better represent the organisation as purpose-led, human, kind and not fixated on transactional, dated HR practices.

Humankind’s mission is to help people love what they do and do what they love, she says.

‘‘Having a really clear vision and purpose means everyone organises themselves around those things. People aren’t just driven by making more money. People want to know how they’re making a difference,’’ she says.

Her aim is to help build the best New Zealand workplaces and to do that, she needed a clear purpose to underpin everything the company did, from attracting the best talent to the services offered.

More familiar to Kiwis is Spark’s rebrand from Telecom to position the company as a digital services provider for the future.

Human resources general manager Dani George says attracting younger digital talent is a key focus for Spark and the company has a number of young staff.

‘‘There is a marked difference in how younger people want to make their mark on the world, rather than just taking on a job.’’

Deloitte’s Howell says companies should be more aware of what’s important to workers and for millennials, culture is obviously important.

As part of that culture, companies should think about its values and ethics and how that is communicated to the workforce.

‘‘The number one thing [about retaining talent] is organisations need to understand people’s values, they need to satisfy demand and support ambitions.’’