There are already, according to the latest estimates, 40 million millennials in the American workforce. A recent MTV study set out to understand what drives and motivates this generation at work.
Meet the no-collars
The no-collar generation is looking for meaning at work - younger workers want to be able to connect deeply with their work. It is this desire for ‘meaning' that can be misinterpreted as laziness, pickiness, or self-importance. The no-collars expect to be happy and fulfilled in the workplace and the research found that half of the respondents felt they would rather not have a job at all than have a job they hated. Loving what they do outranked monetary rewards. Key findings
- 95% are motivated to work harder when they know 'where their work is going'
- 93% want a job where they can'be themselves'.
- 89% agree it's important to be constantly learning at work
- 83% want jobs that value their creativity
- 71% want their co-workers to be 'second family'
- 65% believe they should be mentoring older co-workers on technology
- 60% say if they can't find a job they want, they will try to create their own job
Keeping employees happy
Openness, mentoring and fun were important factors in the success of Futureheads, an award winning workplace. If these are examples of what employees do want, let's focus on what they don't want. And let's put a hip-shaking CEO at the top of that list. The CEO of a loss making Swedish public company has made a fool of himself in front of his employees with a self-indulgent, high-spending birthday party. Cringe! Most of us can now console ourselves that things haven't got this bad in our workplace!