CHAPTER 4

HIGH TECH AND HIGH TOUCH

Eric is a Millennial working on a team in a large professional services firm. He really enjoys hanging out with his team and will take every opportunity to go out with team members after work. He loves technology, wears headphones all the time so he can listen to music or podcasts while he is working, is always carrying around the newest devices and talking about the latest features, and instant messages (IMs) people sitting 10 feet away from him just because it’s fun. One day, he had finished his assigned work by midafternoon, so he decided to watch a show on his phone to relax. He figured he was done with his work early, so he could kick back and take a break. He was partway through his show when his boss appeared behind him and asked him what he was doing. He explained that he was watching a show to take a break since he was finished with his work. His boss took a deep breath (to calm down) and then explained that (1) watching shows at work wasn’t allowed; and (2) if he had finished his work, he should go ask members of his team whether he could help them. He is part of the team, after all. Eric hadn’t thought of it. In his mind, when he finished his own work, he was done. Once the issue was pointed out to him, he was concerned that his team members would think badly of him because he didn’t think to help them. He immediately got up and went around helping people—and bought the first round of drinks after work.

Eric loves technology, and it is what he defaults to when looking for something to do. But he also cares a great deal about the people he works with. Do Millennials love technology? Yes. They want their new tech devices and the latest apps. They want to do most of their communication electronically because it is more efficient. But are they happy to have technology replace human contact? No. The people they work with are critically important to them and their experience at work.

MILLENNIALS LOVE TECHNOLOGY AND WANT ALL THE TECH TOYS THEY CAN GET, RIGHT?

Would I like it if they’d give us iPads to use when we came to work here? Absolutely!

—Millennial

Yes, Millennials love their tech toys. They would prefer to have whatever is newest. They want the latest hardware and software. According to a 2010 report on Millennials by the Pew Research Center, they are more likely to have a social network profile, to have posted a video of themselves, to use Twitter, and to send text messages than are older generations.¹ That same 2010 report said that 74 percent of Millennials believe that new technology makes life easier.²

Why do Millennials love tech so much? They are comfortable with it. They have grown up with technology, starting at an earlier age than any previous generation. They make and maintain friendships through technology. They gain status within their own social groups as a result of having the newest and best tech toys. Their proficiency with technology provides them with status at work (how many times have you seen older staff ask someone in their twenties for help with a computer?). But we believe the biggest reason Millennials love technology at work is because it reduces drudgery and saves them time.

Millennials Are High Tech … They Think Technology Reduces Drudgery and Saves Time

Recall from Chapter 1 that Millennials don’t like boring work. In part, they love technology because it reduces the laborious, uninteresting work they dislike so much. According to a 2010 report by the Pew Research Center, half of Millennials believe that new technology allows people to use their time more efficiently.³ Many Millennials believe that there is a tech solution for pretty much everything that they don’t want to do.

Joke

How many Millennials does it take to change a lightbulb?

Unclear—they’re still looking for an app for that.

In some cases, what Millennials don’t realize is that their tech “solution” is actually shifting the workload to others. So the high-tech solution that causes them less work because they already know how to use the system causes more work for those who don’t know the system or have to implement the system.

Recall the story from Chapter 1 about Millennials and their older bosses who disagree about the use of “track changes” in electronic documents. Millennials told us that they would create a report in Microsoft Word and send it to the appropriate boss for review. Rather than reviewing it onscreen and sending an electronic document back to the Millennial with tracked changes and notes, the boss would instead hand the Millennial a paper copy with notes written in the margins. Getting all the edits incorporated often took multiple iterations, which the Millennials thought was unnecessarily time consuming.

The Millennials said this process used them as transcribers. They are capable of doing the work, but it is a waste of their time (and organizational resources) when the initial reviewers could have typed the changes themselves. Also, it’s boring to transcribe what someone else has written. It is more interesting to work with edits made in an electronic file and make changes on top of those to improve the final product.

This manual process really does take a lot of time. Why does it happen? When we spoke with the older people who were making the notes on paper, they told us they did it this way because they don’t like using track changes. They said that they understood it would save the Millennials time if they put their notes in track changes, but they are used to making notes on physical pages so it is faster for them. They also find track changes confusing and more difficult to use.

Saving Millennials’ time or helping them avoid boring work was not a priority for the bosses. Frankly, their bosses’ time is (financially) worth many times what the typical Millennial’s time is worth to the organization. So if the bosses’ time is saved by making notes on paper, that is what is going to happen. Both parties prefer the method that saves them the most time and makes their work experience the most pleasant. And as typically happens in organizations, the people with the most clout get to make the rules, and others follow them.

If you realize Millennials are choosing the least laborious route for them to get something done, then their automatic use of technology will make more sense. They send an e-mail, instant message, or text, depending on what is most efficient for them to use at the moment. And when we say most efficient, we mean “do what needs to be done quickly.” Remember, they dislike their time being wasted by others. (It is OK if they choose to waste it themselves because that is their choice and not something imposed on them.)

This is true even when they are volunteering.⁴ In a survey of volunteers by Achieve, 69 percent said that their biggest pet peeve when volunteering was having their time wasted, and 47 percent were bothered that they had to attend training sessions in person that could have been done equally well online and asynchronously.⁵

Millennials like to do things in a way that is most efficient for them and best meets their needs, which typically involves technology. But this isn’t unique to Millennials; people of all generations use the method that is easiest for them. A client may prefer to receive a phone call rather than an e-mail, but the Millennial employee may not realize this and will send an e-mail because that method is more efficient for the Millennial. Similarly, Millennials’ bosses may provide them with critical information electronically, such as feedback about their performance or their compensation, when Millennials would prefer to receive that information face-to-face (more on this later).

So yes, Millennials are high tech. They gravitate toward work that includes technology because tech is both intrinsically interesting to them and faster and easier for them to use.

The Point

Millennials like technology and want to use technology to reduce unnecessary drudgery at work. Managers can work with Millennials to find a solution to avoid the boring work (if such a solution exists). Managers need to explain the problem to Millennials if their preferred solution simply shifts the uninteresting work to other employees. Organizations and all employees will benefit if solutions can be found that reduce unnecessary drudgery overall.

Millennials Are High Tech … They Maintain Friendships Through Cyberspace

Perhaps one of the most hyperbolic stereotypes about the Millennial generation is that they are so connected to the Internet and social networking that they do almost all of their socializing that way. That of course is not true—most see their friends as well as texting, emailing and IMing them, rather than only interacting with them virtually. But a 2010 study by the Pew Research Center reported that a majority of Millennials in the United States⁶ believe that new technology helps people stay closer to their friends and family.⁷

Millennials use a variety of methods to connect with friends, and as much as they like to spend time with friends face-to-face, they are also likely to describe people they only interact with virtually as friends. With the increase in global mobility, people are increasingly likely to live far away from their friends and family. Many of the Millennials we spoke with around the world said that keeping in touch with friends digitally was the only way they could maintain contact with many of them. It isn’t just that people are busy; it is also because they no longer live near their friends. We were told that after university, many of their friends moved to different places for work and family reasons, so if they wanted to remain close to these people, they had to use electronic methods. A few Millennials commented that technology is especially helpful for maintaining relationships with friends they had made overseas. Many had spent a semester or term abroad and had made friendships they wanted to maintain when they moved back to their home countries.

Millennials have adapted to this reality by relying on technology-mediated ways to maintain relationships with their large friend networks. Facebook, e-mail, instant messaging, Instagram, and Skype help them keep up with friends who are far away. Millennials say they are more likely to use phone, e-mail, and text messaging for connecting with friends they don’t see very often (see Figure 4.1).

FIGURE 4.1: Percentage Who Choose to Use Each Method of Communication to Maintain Relationships with Friends They Don’t See Very Often

Millennials report maintaining some social relationships almost exclusively through cyberspace. Twenty-nine percent say that they have friends they have met through the web whom they haven’t met in person, while 42 percent of Millennials say that they have friends they interact with only in cyberspace. Figure 4.2 shows what that looks like for Millennials around the world. We see that it is not uncommon for Millennials to have at least one friend with whom they interact exclusively through cyberspace; the percentage varies widely from country to country. Korea and Japan have among the lowest rates, while Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, and India have the highest. North America and Europe are in the middle.

FIGURE 4.2: Percentage of Millennials with Friends They Interact with Only Through Cyberspace

While some claim Millennials aren’t connected with each other because they spend their time focused on their electronic devices, our interviews with Millennials indicate that they are often interacting with others while buried in their phones. It isn’t the platform they use to connect, but the fact that they are connected that is important. For them, face-to-face time isn’t the only way to have a meaningful connection with another person. Many of them have learned how to maintain relationships electronically, which can increase rather than decrease their circle of friends—all appearances to the contrary!

The Point

Millennials are used to living far away from people they care about, and many have become comfortable maintaining relationships purely though cyberspace. This capacity will be an advantage to them in the long term, as organizations continue to become more dispersed. Organizations can leverage Millennials’ ability to manage and maintain relationships through cyberspace by engaging in practices such as assigning them to work on geographically dispersed teams.

Millennials Are High Tech … They Rely on Technology Too Much!

In our interviews around the globe, we heard repeatedly how technologically advanced the Millennials are. In many cases, the implication was that they relied on technology too much. For example, we were told stories of

•  Millennials who chose to IM people in the same room rather than asking a question out loud.

•  Millennials who e-mailed clients rather than calling them on the phone.

•  Millennials who asked long, involved questions over e-mail rather than walking to an office a few doors away.

•  Millennials who continued to respond by electronic means to someone who was clearly confused rather than speaking with the other person, when doing so would have quickly taken care of the problem.

It is important to note that the older generations (primarily Generation X) also make extensive use of technology, including overuse at times. (How many times have you rolled your eyes at a really long e-mail communicating something that should have been handled in person or by phone that was sent by someone older than a Millennial?) The difference between the generations shows up more in the types of technology used, especially in their social relationships.⁸

DILBERT © 2011 Scott Adams. Used by permission of UNIVERSAL UCLICK. All rights reserved.

Millennials are much more likely to use newer technology, such as social networking, texting, and instant messaging, to maintain relationships with friends they don’t see very often (see Figure 4.1). People from older generations are more likely to use e-mail and, in fact, use e-mail more often than face-to-face communication or even talking on the phone.

We don’t think the differences in Figure 4.1 indicate that older generations are technology-phobic. The older generation entered adulthood at a time when e-mail was the brand-new sexy technology that they embraced more quickly than their elders. They established lifelong friendships and patterns of interacting with their generational peers that centered on e-mail, and those patterns persist to today. It will be interesting to see if the pattern holds over time, with Millennials imprinting on the forms of technology they used in their twenties and being unwilling to switch when a newer technology comes along.

The differences in Figure 4.1 also provide another explanation for tensions among the generations about technology usage in the workplace. Millennials are clearly comfortable using multiple types of technology to maintain social relationships outside of work, so they are going to be more inclined to use—or even demand the use of—those same technologies in their work relationships. Older generations are much more comfortable with e-mail and the phone, and are less likely to use social networks, text messaging, and instant messaging. So they may be slower to embrace those technologies at work which they don’t see as improvements, instead defaulting to their preferred ones, while Millennials continue to push for their preferred technologies.

The Point

Millennials rely on technology about as much as their older peers do, but the technologies they rely on may be different. Millennials often prefer to use newer tech systems that are less likely to be used commonly across the organization. If this tendency affects their ability to communicate effectively, help them understand and use the dominant technology so they can be successful. Leverage Millennials’ interest in technology systems to identify new communication methods that may improve efficiency for all.

TECH IS GREAT, BUT CONNECTION MATTERS JUST AS MUCH TO MILLENNIALS

While Millennials want to make effective use of their time and use the technology they prefer, they clearly value connecting with people, and they realize that not all information is best communicated through an electronic medium. For Millennials, connections at work with friends, their teams, and their supervisors are critical to how they feel about work.

Millennials Are High Touch … They Generally Prefer Face-to-Face Communication

One of the complaints we have often heard about Millennials is that they don’t understand the importance of nonverbal communication in effectively understanding and communicating with others. We heard countless stories about Millennials who chose to communicate electronically when they should have chosen to speak with the person face-to-face. This behavior was explained to us as evidence of Millennials’ preference for electronic rather than in-person communication. Our data suggest that this type of behavior is not an indication that Millennials prefer electronic communication. We think this happens because Millennials perceive these communications to be less critical and thus acceptable to occur electronically.

We find that Millennials actually prefer face-to-face communication to other forms. In our interviews, Millennials were clearly aware that they can have greater influence and improve the perception of themselves more through face-to-face interaction than through technology-mediated communication. The data in Table 4.1 clearly show that they act on this knowledge by focusing first and foremost on face-to-face communication with colleagues at all levels of the organization.

TABLE 4.1 How Millennials Prefer to Communicate with Colleagues

Whether they are communicating with colleagues at lower, equal, or higher levels, approximately three-quarters of Millennials prefer face-to-face communication for each group as their first choice. During our interviews and focus groups, it was apparent that face-to-face was their preference, but they didn’t always communicate that way. We were told that when they think about how to communicate with others, they are balancing importance and expediency. If face-to-face communication will take substantially more effort than electronic, Millennials are likely to make a calculation about whether the importance of the communication merits the additional effort.

For example, if it is as easy to have the communication face-to-face as electronically, Millennials might default to speaking with someone face-to-face regardless of what the subject matter is. But if communicating face-to-face requires significant effort on the part of the Millennials, they might go to the trouble only if they consider the information or conversation to be particularly important to them (not necessarily taking the importance of the conversation to the other party into consideration).

Millennials will go to the trouble of having a face-to-face conversation when receiving performance evaluation feedback. It is likely that most Millennials understand they can get more information about their performance that they can use to improve their position within the organization if they can see the nonverbal behaviors of the person providing the feedback. Technology-mediated forms of communication don’t provide non-verbal cues the way face-to-face communication does. They may also realize that they have a greater advantage in a face-to-face encounter because they can have more influence on the perception of the person if they are speaking face-to-face.

Millennials prefer receiving performance evaluation feedback in the following ways:

•  Face-to-face: 92 percent

•  E-mail: 5 percent

•  Phone: 2 percent

•  IM: 1 percent

•  Text: 0 percent

•  Social networking site: 0 percent

•  Video chat: 0 percent

When talking about their career plans or progress, Millennials overwhelmingly want the communication to happen face-to-face. It is likely that most Millennials understand that they have greater influence over the outcome of career planning meetings if they are held face-to-face. It is more difficult to refuse requests from someone face-to-face than it is at a distance. If an individual is making a substantial request, it is more strategic to make that request in person than through some form of technology-mediated communication. Clearly, Millennials see the importance of face-to-face communication when addressing career issues.

Millennials prefer talking about their career plans and performance in the following ways:

•  Face-to-face: 95 percent

•  E-mail: 3 percent

•  Phone: 2 percent

•  IM: 0 percent

•  Text: 0 percent

•  Social networking site: 0 percent

•  Video chat: 0 percent

When discussing their compensation, as with receiving feedback and discussing career plans, most Millennials prefer that the conversations take place face-to-face. However, unlike feedback on performance and conversations about their career, Millennials are more willing to communicate over e-mail when their compensation is the topic. It is possible this is because conversations about compensation are often not as open to influence as are conversations about feedback or career planning, so receiving the information over e-mail is perceived as less of a disadvantage.

Millennials prefer discussing their compensation in the following ways:

•  Face-to-face: 79 percent

•  E-mail: 17 percent

•  Phone: 4 percent

•  IM: 0 percent

•  Text: 0 percent

•  Social networking site: 0 percent

•  Video chat: 0 percent

When the conversation is about something Millennials believe is important to them (their performance, their career, or their compensation), they really want the conversation to happen face-to-face. When the conversation is about something someone else thinks is critical, Millennials still believe that it should be done face-to-face, but not as overwhelmingly.

Newfangled Technology and Evolving “Proper” Communication Methods

Even though the vast majority of Millennials say they prefer face-to-face interaction for communicating with clients and customers, we ran into quite a few instances in which the general perception of Millennials is that they are much too quick to default to technology for client or customer communication. The typical lament was, “I don’t understand why they are so quick to send an e-mail or even a text message when it would be so much more professional to pick up the phone or even go to the client in person.”

Our data show that many Millennials opt first for communication methods that are not face-to-face for conversations with customers, supervisors, and colleagues. But that isn’t necessarily wrong. For instance, if they are choosing phone or e-mail first and face-to-face interactions second, that could be entirely appropriate: they leave a voice mail or send e-mail first, and then follow up face-to-face.

To see if that is what is going on, we looked at both the first and second choices for communicating with customers, supervisors, and colleagues (see Table 4.2). The vast majority (about 85 percent) of Millennials use face-to-face communication for either their first or second choice across a wide range of work communications.

TABLE 4.2 Percentage of Millennials Choosing Face-to-Face as Either Their First or Second Choice for Communicating

While everyone, including Millennials, agrees that face-to-face communication is the most personal, the world doesn’t stand still, certainly when it comes to how technology is used at work. Many Millennials are completely comfortable conducting more types of communication using technology, such as texting, social networking, and instant messaging. As their numbers grow in the workforce and as they ascend to higher- and higher-level roles in the organization and interact more with suppliers and customers, some of the norms of what had been considered to be “proper” business communication in the past are likely to change.

Consider the experience a couple of parents had with their Millennial daughter. The parents would constantly harp on their daughter to pick up the phone to call her friends rather than do everything via text messages. The daughter resisted their pleas (even though she admitted they had a point—sometimes) and insisted on using text messaging as the primary means of communicating with her friends. One day when they were riding in the car together, she piped up, “You know, when I have kids, I’m probably going say to them, ‘Why don’t you just text your friends?’” She realized that the generation following hers would have some newfangled technology that would be just as foreign to her as texting was to her parents and that she would have concerns largely similar to those of her parents, albeit about a different technology.

We do not believe, as some in the past have predicted with prior technology innovations, that in-person communication will ever “die”—there will always be a need for in-person communication for many critical business issues (as well as critical social issues). Yet just as e-mail took the place of some types of in-person and telephone-based communication when it was fully adopted by businesses, a similar evolution is bound to happen for technologies to come. Looking forward 20 years from now, when Millennials will occupy most middle and senior management roles, we fully expect large parts, but not the overwhelming majority, of business communication to take place over these new technologies.

WORKING DAZE © 2009 John Zakour and Scott Roberts. Reprinted by permission of UNIVERSAL UCLICK for UFS. All rights reserved.

Given that the majority of Millennials prefer face-to-face communication, why does the stereotype persist that Millennials prefer to communicate electronically? Perhaps it is because people see them buried in their computers, tablets, and phones so much of the time and assume that their preference is to communicate that way. Everyone can think of one or two examples of a time a Millennial should have communicated in person and didn’t, but people don’t necessarily remember the times an older employee did the same. Our results demonstrate how critical personal connections are to Millennials, regardless of how much time they spend with their eyes focused on one screen or another.

The Point

While Millennials may like technology, they prioritize face-to-face communication for conversations they perceive as important. Managers need to do their best to have face-to-face conversations when talking with Millennials about information that is important to them (e.g., about compensation, career, or performance). Managers can also help Millennials figure out how to identify what information is important to others so they can have conversations on those topics face-to-face as well.

Millennials Are High Touch … Their Community at Work Matters a Lot to Them

Though they love technology, Millennials are definitely high touch. While technology is important, the human aspect of work is even more important. If they don’t feel emotionally connected to their workplace either through friends or team members or their boss, they are a flight risk. Millennials who don’t have an emotional connection to their organization will seek it elsewhere. At work, they want friends, teams they feel friendly with, a boss who cares about them, and an organization of which they feel part.

Friends at Work

Friends are critical to Millennials, both at home and at work. Ninety-eight percent of Millennials say that developing close ties with coworkers is important to them. In fact, having friends and close coworkers at work is so important that it is strongly related to how committed a Millennial feels to the organization. Why? Our guess is that it has to do with the current life stage of the majority of Millennials. Most of the Millennials in our sample haven’t started families, and many are more likely to rely on their friends than a spouse. At this point in their lives, friends simply loom larger, as they did for Baby Boomers and Gen Xers at the same life stage.

This was clear to us during our interviews. We heard from Millennials all over the world about how important their friends at work were to them. They talked about the evenings out after a long week, sports teams they played on, weekend parties, and double dates. Many told us that having the chance to spend time with their friends at work makes work a place they wanted to be—and a place they didn’t mind spending 12 or so hours a day during the week.

Given how important friends at work are to Millennials, it is good news that a majority of Millennials feel that they have friends there. Sixty-six percent say they have formed strong friendships at work, and 60 percent say they can confide in people at work, which means that a majority have relationships at work that help make the workplace a place they want to be (the percentages are similar for older generations).

One way Millennials cultivate friendships with others at work is through socializing outside of office hours. About one in five say that they socialize with people from work every week, and about two in five say that they socialize with people from work a couple of times a month or every month.

While only one-fifth of Millennials may socialize with friends from work outside the workplace every week, their friends at work are definitely a big draw for them. Fifty-four percent say that being able to see their coworkers is one of the reasons they look forward to their job. When Millennials don’t have coworkers they like or feel they have a good working relationship with, they become dissatisfied and are likely to want to leave the group or the organization.

Millennials tend to socialize with people at their level more than they do with people above or below them within the organizational hierarchy. Eighty-nine percent say they get together with people at the same job level, while 61 percent say they socialize with people above their level in the organization, and slightly fewer⁹ say that they socialize with people below their organizational level. Older employees report seeing their coworkers less frequently outside of work than do Millennials but are just as likely to report having good friends at work and seeing these coworkers as a primary reason they look forward to going to work.

In addition to socializing outside of work, three-quarters of Millennials report that they contact coworker friends through either internal or external social networking sites. In all countries except Japan, more than 60 percent of Millennials contact their coworkers using internal or external social networking sites (see Figure 4.3). And for 64 percent of those, some contact among coworkers is taking place outside of corporate systems. This is true for Millennials at all levels in the organization. This is positive because it shows how robust the relationships are. But make sure that employees know what information can be talked about outside of workplace systems, and what cannot, even among friends.

FIGURE 4.3: Percentage of Millennials Who Contact Coworkers Using Internal or External Social Networking Sites

The Point

Millennials’ connections with friends are critical to their lives in general and to their experience at work in particular. Even if their interaction is only virtual, having friends at work matters to Millennials because it makes work a place they want to be. They aren’t happy simply playing on devices; they want other people to connect with—and perhaps play on the devices with them! Organizations benefit when their employees develop workplace friendships. While organizations can’t assign friends as they can mentors, they can facilitate the development of friendships through workplace teams, events, and interest groups.

Connecting with Their Team

A crucial part of Millennials’ experience at work is the team they work on. For organizations, teamwork is a core part of the work design—without it, many critical tasks would never be accomplished efficiently and effectively. The good news is that Millennials see high value in working on teams, not just because it enables the work, but because of the social interactions it provides.

Many Millennials talked about how they were willing to work late to make sure their team’s goals were met. Some talked about voluntarily staying to support other team members who hadn’t finished their work and going to get food for hungry members of their teams who couldn’t leave. Many said that they wouldn’t feel connected to their organization if it weren’t for the teams they were on. To them, the team is the organization, in a tangible way.

Millennials’ desire to be part of a team at work is strong across all the countries in our data. Except for in Korea, more than 60 percent of Millennials, and more than 80 percent in some, would rather work as part of a group than work alone (see Figure 4.4). Even in the United States, where everyone is supposed to be very individually oriented, more than 70 percent of Millennials would rather work as part of a group.

FIGURE 4.4: Percentage of Millennials Who Say Working with a Group Is Better than Working Alone

As work within organizations becomes more structured around teams, Millennials find themselves spending more time in team environments and relying on the members of their teams. Though the membership of a team changes as work shifts and projects come and go, the support Millennials perceive from their teams is an important part of their community at work. Almost three-quarters of Millennials¹⁰ (and about as many older staff)¹¹ say that their teams have a great deal of personal meaning to them.

Happily, a majority of Millennials feel connected to the teams they work on:

•  64 percent say they feel as if they are an important member of their teams.

•  57 percent say that they have a strong sense of belonging to their teams.

•  59 percent say that colleagues on their teams really care about their well-being.

This means that a majority of Millennials have a positive relationship with their teams, which is good because their membership in a team is so important to them.

Millennials are dedicated team members and strongly believe in working in team environments. While Millennials want control and autonomy, three-quarters¹² say that they prefer working with a group to working alone. Even when things aren’t going well, four out of five believe they should stay with the group and help rather than work alone.

Millennials’ behavior demonstrates how important their teams are to them. Remember the story about Eric at the beginning of the chapter? Though he was watching a show on his phone, as soon as it was pointed out that he was letting his team down, he stopped watching and started helping out his team members. Helping team members is common for Millennials: about 80 percent report that they volunteer to do things for their teams, help others on their teams with their responsibilities, and get involved beyond their job responsibilities to benefit their teams. Millennials believe that their attitude toward their teams is reciprocated: about 80 percent say that colleagues on their teams will help them when they have a problem and are willing to help them if they need a special favor.

The Point

Millennials’ teams really matter to their experience at work. The good news is that the majority of Millennials are pretty happy with the teams they are on: they feel they can trust the members of the team, they say the team cares about them personally, and they are willing to go beyond their specific job responsibilities to help people on their team. This is particularly positive because we have found that feeling part of a team affects Millennials’ organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and intention to remain with the organization. Organizations benefit when they provide environments for Millennials that allow them to work with others on teams so they can develop the community at work that they need.

Having a Boss They Connect With

Their relationships with their bosses are just as important to Millennials as their relationships with their friends at work or the teams of which they are a part.

Millennials have very specific ideas about what makes a good boss or leader. They believe that good leaders are considerate, kind, and willing to help others; they care about others and want to get to know the people they work with and form relationships with them. Millennials expect leaders to help members of their teams and encourage teamwork and collaborative behavior. They also believe that good leaders inspire and motivate others (see Appendix 4.1). While many Millennials may not have leaders that live up to their expectations of what a good leader is, the good news is that a majority believe that their managers care about their well-being¹³ and are generally supportive.¹⁴

The Need to Be Appreciated

During our interviews, one common refrain we heard from everyone (Millennials, older staff, and managers) is that a large percentage of Millennials say they don’t feel appreciated at work. (Incidentally, the older people we spoke with said they didn’t feel appreciated either, so this feeling is common.) However, a majority (58 percent of Millennials and 61 percent of their older peers) say that they do feel appreciated at work.

While that is a majority, about 40 percent—and slightly more Millennials than older workers—don’t feel appreciated at work. In other words, many believe their workplace is consistent with the saying, “Doing a good job around here is like wetting your pants in a dark suit. It gives you a nice warm feeling, but nobody notices.”¹⁵

One woman we interviewed talked specifically about how she didn’t feel appreciated. She received strong performance appraisals and pay increases, but she said she never felt as if her boss actually appreciated her work. She said she received a perfunctory performance review where she was told that her performance was excellent, but that was it. No specifics about what she had done well, no suggestions for how she could improve, and no simple statement about how much he appreciated the work she did for the organization. When last we spoke, she was trying to get transferred to another boss who had a better reputation for appreciating staff.

Millennials want to feel appreciated, just as everyone else does. And if they don’t feel appreciated where they are, they’ll see where they can go to feel appreciated.

The bad news is that a large minority of Millennials do not think that their bosses care about their well-being, and more than a quarter¹⁶ don’t feel that their supervisors are supportive. Worse, one in five say that their managers show little concern for them and don’t appreciate it when they put in extra effort. That means that 20 to 40 percent of Millennials don’t feel as if their managers are meeting their needs for connection and community.

It is critical for organizations to pay attention to the discrepancy between what Millennials want and what they are experiencing. While Millennials may like their tech toys, it is their relationships, such as those with their bosses, that make or break their experience at work. Regardless of the actual levels of support, the discrepancy between what Millennials believe supervisors should do and what supervisors actually do has a profound impact on organizational commitment and engagement.

The Point

Millennials’ connections with their supervisors have a large impact on how they feel about their workplace, as they do for all employees. Make sure that supervisors recognize the importance of connection and do what they can to address their employees’ needs. Doing so will help improve how employees feel about the entire organization.

Feeling Connected with the Organization as a Whole

In addition to having friends, feeling part of a team, and having a boss they like and trust, Millennials want to feel connected to their organization as a whole. For Millennials, some of that connection comes from shared values (see Chapter 3) and some from feeling that their organization cares about them.

A majority of Millennials feel their organization cares about their general satisfaction at work,¹⁷ and more than two-thirds believe that their organization values their contribution to its well-being.¹⁸ In 2013, Achieve published a study of Millennials that found that “more than half (53 percent) of respondents said having their passions and talents recognized and addressed is their top reason for remaining at their current company.”¹⁹

One Millennial we spoke with, who worked for a global company, talked about how he didn’t identify just with the local office he worked in; he felt as if he were part of the larger global community within the organization. He said he participated in online groups with other employees from all over the world who were interested in the same subject (in this case, rugby). Beyond his immediate friends, teammates, and boss, the organization as a large global entity held real meaning for him because he felt it supported him and his interests. Between the global affinity groups and the opportunity to work with people all over the world (either virtually or through possible global assignments), he felt the organization as a whole was an important part of his work experience.

Feeling that connection to the larger community at work is important, for it benefits both the Millennial and the organization. The old saying that people don’t leave organizations, they leave their bosses, is just as true for Millennials as it is for older workers. But that too-simple statement leaves out the critical connection to people other than the immediate supervisor.

Even Millennials don’t expect nirvana at work, so they aren’t going to stampede for the door just because their bosses are less than perfect. And a large part of what keeps them from leaving is their connection to the larger organization. That includes relationships with their immediate team members, friendships throughout the organization, mentors who can help guide them in their careers, and so on.

Connection with the organization as a whole is important because it also represents future opportunities. The prospect of working for other bosses and having experiences that enable professional and personal growth is all part of the package that comes with working for an organization. Commitment to the organization as a whole is built on the foundation of these multifaceted relationships that together define the Millennials’ experience at work.

The Point

The organization itself is an important part of Millennials’ experience of the workplace. An organization’s values, norms, and culture are part of the foundation that defines employees’ daily work experiences. Supervisors play an important role in employees’ experiences at work, but they are only one among many individuals and groups that make up each person’s experience of the larger organization. Leaders in organizations need to provide employees with opportunities to connect with others beyond their immediate supervisor.

CONCLUSION: MILLENNIALS LIKE TECHNOLOGY, BUT PEOPLE ARE JUST AS IMPORTANT TO THEM

As you can see, the evidence shows that Millennials are high tech, but they also are high touch. Just because Millennials spend so much time attached to one tech toy or another (literally 24/7 for some, with the wearable technology currently available), that doesn’t mean people aren’t essential to their experience of life in general and of work in particular. People are important. Feeling like they have a community at work is a determining factor in employees’ commitment to their organization, job satisfaction, engagement, and retention. In other words, when Millennials don’t have a tech toy, they may be slightly annoyed; when they don’t have a community, they look for a place to go that will give them one.

Given that Millennials are simultaneously high tech and high touch, the following sections describe some actions you can take to work more effectively with them, whether you are a team member, a manager, or a leader.

Recommendations for Working with Millennials as Team Members

As team members, Millennials want to use the most efficient means possible to get their work done. For them, that is likely to be a technological solution. While this tendency may be frustrating, it also might end up saving time. Think about it—if someone can figure out a way to do the work more efficiently and just as accurately, that saves you time and lets you apply your skills to work that is more interesting and valuable for the organization.

While Millennials believe technology is their friend, in some cases it is a crutch. You can show them how to stop relying on it so much. We have heard many stories where Millennials defaulted to sending an e-mail that resulted in unnecessary confusion and ruffled feathers. You can help Millennials learn when a phone call or face-to-face conversation would be more effective and efficient than technology-mediated communication. You can do this by modeling the behavior and explaining why you made one choice or the other, and by coaching them directly. This will help Millennials become more savvy organizational citizens, and it will help save you from some of those endless (and unnecessary) e-mail exchanges!

How Different Are Millennials, Really?

While people talk about Millennials doing everything electronically, older generations are as likely as Millennials to interact with people through cyberspace²⁰ or to have friends they have met through the web whom they haven’t met in person.²¹ Older people use the same forms of communication to maintain relationships that Millennials do; they’re just more likely to use some forms and less likely to use others. Millennials are more likely to communicate with others through social networking platforms, text, and instant messaging, while older people are more likely to use e-mail. In fact, the lament about people at work writing long e-mails to a colleague instead of getting up from their desk and walking down the hall to have the conversation is not a generation-specific issue. We have heard these complaints about how communication takes place in organizations since long before the oldest Millennials graduated from high school.

Like Millennials, a majority of workers from older generations say that they have friends at work²² and can confide in people at work.²³ Only 28 percent say they are likely to socialize with people at work weekly or a couple of times a month, which means they are less likely to socialize frequently with coworkers than are Millennials. Like Millennials, older workers prefer receiving performance evaluation feedback, discussing career plans, and discussing compensation face-to-face when given the choice.²⁴ Three-quarters say that their teams have a great deal of personal meaning to them, they prefer working with a group to working alone, and they volunteer to do things to help their teams.

Overall, like their Millennial peers, older workers strongly value the social aspects of their job. Having friends at work is just as important for older workers as it is for Millennials and is a key determinant of how committed they are to the organization.

Millennials also want the people they work with to be their friends. Though you may have neither the time for nor the interest in hanging out, show an interest in their lives outside of work and tell them about yours. What interests do you have in common?

Just as you can coach and mentor Millennials at work, Millennials who are quite familiar with new technologies can reciprocate by showing you and your colleagues ways to make the best use of newer, unfamiliar technologies. For example, as the world moves toward figuring out how to conduct business over social media, it would be beneficial for you to expand your knowledge of these tools. Setting up internal social networking sites is a growing trend, and the benefits of collaborating with your coworkers can be substantial if done right. Millennials can help you learn how to do it quickly.

Recommendations for Managing Millennials

1. Let them use their preferred technology to support their work, if possible.

Every new generation is more adept at the current technology than its elders, and Millennials are no exception. As an organization, you know you shouldn’t jump on the new technology bandwagon just because the young people are using something different and cool. But you also know that often there are real benefits to the new technology, including potential cost and time savings, that will benefit the organization. You also have to consider the risk of being left behind as society, your customers, and key employees shift to new processes. Giving employees the option to use the new technologies in appropriate ways can provide an effective path for introducing options to the organization.

As a manager, work closely with employees to understand the potential and drawbacks of new technologies. The most immediate short-term benefit may be just that employees are happier because they get to use the technology they prefer. But the time and effort invested to learn and understand why they are using it and what the new technology has to offer can yield a big return: accelerating your and your organization’s ability to adapt to the new way that people are communicating and interacting with each other. The potential to protect or add to your competitive advantage means it’s an investment you can’t afford not to make.

2. Make sure you connect with your Millennial staff as people.

Employees don’t want to be treated as just a number or a cog in the machine. Connect with them. Find out what makes them tick. Show that you actually care for them as human beings. This doesn’t mean you have to cater to their every wish or go out with them every day after work, but the more you connect with them as people, the easier it will be to say no in a compassionate way when you have to.

As a manager, remember that even in the midst of all the pressures you and your team are under at work, taking the extra time to reach out to employees personally can yield huge benefits. We often feel like we don’t have time for everything we have to do in life, and taking time away from whatever task we’re thinking about to focus on the personal side of work can feel like a distraction. It will feel more important if you recognize the benefit your team members will get from being acknowledged for their whole selves, not just what they contribute on the job. Feeling connected may even help you in the long run.

3. In person is still almost always the best choice when communicating with Millennials, especially for anything related to compensation, development, or performance.

No one wants to have tough conversations over e-mail or text, and Millennials are no exception. Though they are comfortable with technology, they recognize the importance of nonverbal communication and strongly prefer that important conversations occur face-to-face. Even though employees may spend much of their personal time, and even some professional time, on social networks and instant messaging, those communication tools should not be used for critical conversations at work.

As a manager, remember that when discussing compensation, professional development, and performance reviews, there is no substitute for being there in person. Make every effort to have these conversations face-to-face. When managing employees at a distance where there might not be the option to have these conversations in person, ask them how they’d prefer to handle it. Some may prefer the phone, others video conferencing. The point is to be aware of their preferences and to make sure they receive the information in the way they prefer.

4. Provide opportunities for Millennials to make friends at work.

Organizations do not exist to create a social life for employees, but that does not change the fact that many, Millennials included, make friends at work. Employees like creating a community where they work, and friendships are a key part of that. The more opportunities you can provide to enable those relationships to develop, the better.

Managers and organizations can’t provide people with friends, but they can create opportunities for people to meet and get to know each other in nonwork environments. For example, sports teams are common in many organizations. We heard of organization-based teams in France, South Africa, India, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Brazil, and we expect they exist in most countries; they just weren’t mentioned. Some organizations find hobby groups a good way to help employees connect. For example, Starbucks has a Dragonboat group, Eli Lily a Chinese culture group, and Qualcomm sponsors team events such as pumpkin carving at Halloween. Through these sorts of groups, employees have opportunities to meet and make friends with people who have similar interests.

5. Be—or provide—good managers, and make coaching relevant to their job.

Work on improving your relationships with your employees because a healthy supervisor-employee relationship is as critical to Millennials as it is to everyone else. Managers can do this by being mentors as much as they are bosses. Most people respond to constructive feedback and positive coaching. Employees want coaching that they see as directly relevant to their current jobs and their long-term careers. They want to know how to be successful, and targeted coaching meets that need better than anything else.

Therefore, focus on how to improve their leadership and managerial skills. No one is perfect—we all have room for improvement. And no one notices your imperfections more than the people you lead, the ones who may spend as much or more time with you on a daily basis as does your own family (during the workweek—hopefully not also on weekends). Even though you undoubtedly have grown and improved as a manager and leader, people see the discrepancies today rather than the improvements from six years ago. So, hard as it may be, the best way to be a good manager to your team is to be constantly on the lookout for ways to improve.²⁵

Five Points to Remember

1.  Millennials’ technology knowledge can help keep the organization current.

2.  Millennials crave connection and community at work—with their friends and the teams they work with.

3.  You can’t replace face-to-face communication, even for Millennials.

4.  Millennials need a good boss just as much as the next person.

5.  Millennials want to be guided to success on the job and in their careers.

Who Millennials Are and What They Want

Millennials:

•  Love technology and want all the tech toys they can get

•  Believe technology reduces drudgery and saves time

•  Prefer face-to-face interactions for critical communications

•  Feel connections with friends are critical to their experience at work

•  Maintain friendships through cyberspace

•  Want a connection with their team

•  Want a boss they like and trust

•  Want to feel connected with the organization as a whole