Attracting and retaining millennials by offering the opportunity to learn and grow

Millennials now make up a growing proportion of the workforce and their expectations of ‘their dream job’ are here to stay.

87% of millennials surveyed in Gallup’s latest report said that development opportunities are important in their role. No longer are the stereotypes of ping pong tables and free beer the way to win over the best talent of our future generations. The real winners are organisations that continue to nurture millennials’ skills and develop their expertise long into their career.

In today’s fast-paced recruitment climate it’s important that organisations provide opportunities for their younger employees to remain competitive both in their own role and in their industry. More than ever, organisations (large and small) need to be thinking about offering professional development programs to their team members – employee attraction and retention depends on it.

How does employee training and development help your employer brand?
Competing for quality talent in today’s market is increasingly difficult. Offering a competitive salary alone doesn’t necessarily secure you the best people.

While almost all employees consider growth and development opportunities extremely important in an employer, millennials are most attracted to employers who offer advancement pathways and strong leadership. It’s not just talent attraction that should be compelling you to offer these programs, but also employee retention.

What sort of professional development opportunities should my organisation offer?
Training initiatives in your workplace do not have to be expensive. There are a broad array of programs that you can implement to give your people a chance to grow professionally.

Brown-bag sessions or ‘Lunch and Learns’
Held over the lunch hour, brown-bag sessions (also known as Lunch and Learns) are informal training sessions hosted by other employees or senior management. As a non-mandatory program, brown-bag sessions share insights into particularly niche fields or new products and services. They are also a great place to talk about things like industry trends and policy changes or non-work concepts like ‘finding a work-life balance’. The brown-bag sessions provide a platform to encourage employees who are experts in a certain topic to give a brief presentation to the team and share their knowledge.

External Training and Development
Providing funding for further education is a great incentive for millennial employees and your broader team. This may be offered through online courses and open universities or through the opportunity to attend seminars and workshops in an area of professional interest. As an example, L’Oréal has partnered with universities around the world (including Harvard, Colombia and HEC Paris) to give employees the chance to complete internationally renowned certificates. This is a great way to ensure your people are at the forefront of leading ideas and innovation. And there’s no need to worry that this may be out of budget, there are multitudes of low or no cost training initiatives online that you can support through your workplace.

Mentoring
As a way of fostering stronger networks within your organisation, mentorship programs are a great way to share knowledge and learned experience throughout your team. These can be run as a form of one-on-one leadership training or just as a way to offer new employees support and guidance as they adjust to your organisation and get a feel for the opportunities on offer. Mentoring (as well as job shadowing) is also an excellent low-cost avenue for internal professional development and a great way to establish a constructive feedback culture.

Personal Development Planning
A simple strategy to show employees that you’re here to help them grow and support their career progression is a Personal Development Plan. At the beginning of the year, talk to your people about their overarching career goals and objectives for the year ahead. Together, use the time to construct specific milestones for the next 12 months and schedule check-ins to track their progress.

Considering the financial burden of a bored and under-qualified workforce, offering professional development opportunities to your team is a small expense. By implementing one of the above suggestions or something as simple as sending an in-house newsletter with industry updates, suggested podcasts, webinars and articles, you will improve your employer brand. If you’re looking to attract and retain a team of qualified millennials, there’s no better place to start than by supporting professional development.