Millennials
FountainBlue's June 10 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event was on the topic of Embracing Our Multi-Generational Workforce. Below are notes from the conversation.
We were fortunate to have a broad representation of business, company and technical leaders on our panel, all with in-depth experience working with millennials, and who are generously shared their perspectives on how to successfully work with a multi-generational workforce.
Our panelists agreed that millennials are already an important segment of the work population, and will become increasingly more so, as more move into the workforce, and others leave the workforce. These digital natives are re-shaping the way we live and work in many ways:
Tech-based devices and applications are now a part of our life and work. It's hard to imagine our lives without social media, without texting, without real-time notifications, on digital devices which are never far from us.
We are more freely questioning the-way-things-are-done, and invite new and better processes, technologies, approaches and systems… because we can.
We are ever more curious about the why of everything, and use that curiosity to seek understanding, and possibly to seek solutions to an existing or emerging problem.
Social justice, environmental responsibility, and doing the right thing are becoming a big part of who we are, what we do. Companies which both say the right things in this regard, and act on that resolve are resonating more with their larger community - from employees to partners to customers.
Collaborations and partnerships are increasingly becoming more accepted. Indeed, the layout of office space reflects this shift in mentality.
Because these changes are happening, below are suggestions on how we can embrace the mindsets of millennials into the workforce.
If more of us are inviting more challenging and meaningful work, invite people to create and lead projects which do make that difference.
Invite active participation in corporate activities that support the community overall.
If we challenge people to question the status-quo and invite them to design new ways of doing things, positive transformations can take place, transformations which are both easily adopted, and which also directly impact the bottom line, as well as employee engagement.
If we focus more on impact and purpose than on title and compensation (not that these aren't important), you would be more likely to recruit, retain and development the best people.
If you continually raise the bar and keep work interesting and challenging, if you reward based on performance, you will also recruit, retain and development the best people.
The conclusion is that millennials are in general well worth the time and investment. Mentoring and training the best of our millennials on how to better communicate and lead is an investment in our future.
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Please join me in thanking our gracious hosts at NVIDIA and our panelists for FountainBlue's June 10 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event, on the topic of Embracing Our Multi-Generational Workforce.
Facilitator Linda Holroyd, CEO, FountainBlue, VP of Professional Services, IQVIS
Panelist Serpil Bayraktar, Principal Engineer, Cisco Systems
Panelist Tonie Hansen, Senior Director, Corporate Social Responsibility, NVIDIA
Panelist Charu Madan, Head of Business Development and Partnerships, DataTorrent, Inc.
Panelist Yezhisai Murugesan, Architecture Engineer, NVIDIA
Panelist Lucia Turpin, Senior Director for IT Governance and Strategy, Polycom