Care and feeding of millennial workers

Each new generation seems to acquire its own nickname and accompanying stereotype that said generation either tries to live up to or avoid. The GI generation: Use it up, fix it up, make it do or do without.

The baby boomers: Save the world, free love, retirement. Generation X: latchkey kids, misunderstood, credit card debt.

Taking the world by storm, millennials surpassed Gen-X to become the largest segment of the U.S. workforce in 2015. And by 2030, by many estimates, millennials will make up more than 40 percent of the workforce.

In a workplace where the average employee is 31 years old, the majority of Indeed.com’s 6,000 plus global employees are millennials. How to attract and keep them?

“Overall, it’s important to embrace technology in your recruitment and employee engagement strategy, and also build a total rewards program that balances the benefits, support and development opportunities needed for employees at different stages of their career and life,” said Paul Wolfe, senior vice president.

For instance, a few years ago Indeed improved its primary and secondary caregiver leave program to 16 weeks of 100 percent pay for primary caregivers, and six weeks of 100 percent pay for secondary caregivers. In addition, Indeed’s primary caregivers have a four week transition period after their 16 weeks of leave, allowing these employees to gradually get back to working 40 hours a week over the four week period.

Globally, Wolfe said Indeed is committed to cultivating an inclusive culture where all people feel comfortable being themselves and expressing their opinions.

“We believe diverse viewpoints bring different capabilities, and help us strengthen our decisionmaking, develop better product and brand experiences, and fuel our growth,” he said.

A casual dress code, employee development, monthly happy hours, catered lunches, flexible work arrangements and the list of perks, office quirks and out-of-the-box ways to shape the company culture are seemingly endless.

But perhaps more than perks and more than money, Wolfe said millennials are in search of meaningful work.

“Despite enduring a recession and jobs crisis, research shows millennials are less motivated by money, and are driven to find opportunities, organizations, and companies that share a desire to do good in the world. For Indeed, our mission, “to help people get jobs,” has been critical to everything that we do, and it’s largely the reason people come to work at Indeed,” he said.

As owner and CEO of Operations Inc., a Norwalk human resources outsourcing and consulting firm, David Lewis can say that employers need to change the way they have traditionally viewed the workplace if they hope to attract and retain millennial hires.

Before millennials, people strove for a job that paid the bills. And then they often stayed there for 30 plus years.

Companies are tweaking the way they operate to include constant performance and job progression feedback, flexible schedules and a culture that morphs the workplace with a more social setting are those who are retaining millennial hires, Lewis said.