Employers frantic to retain young employees received new advice at Fortune’s Brainstorm Technology Conference on Tuesday about how to interact with Generation Snowflake: be empathetic.
Jake Schwartz, CEO of General Assembly, a business education company, referenced an Accenture study that found businesses could lose nearly $20,000 when a millennial leaves for another job, so it pays to keep them happy.
Paul Canetti, founder and CEO of media technology company MAZ, described how Apple, his previous place of employment, went to great lengths to keep customers happy. Canetti told employers to view their millennial employees as customers whom they need to keep happy.
If a millennial complains about work, don’t say “shut up, I’m paying you,” Canetti told employers. Instead, an employer needs to wear an “empathy hat” and discuss the problem.
Canetti encouraged employers to be more understanding rather than dismissing complaints and concerns from young employees. Cordial interactions make happier millennials and will help employers and employees work through problems together, Canetti said.
Schwartz described why empathizing with employees is especially important for millennials. He said that salaries are not the main reasons that millennials change jobs. Instead, they leave to pursue opportunities for career advancement, better training, skill development, and more flexible hours. If employers want their young workers to stay, those benefits — and a measure of understanding — could go a long way.
It all adds up to understanding what makes employees happy and delivering on it.
It appears as though the college experience has left graduates with a dangerous expectation of being coddled and catered to wherever they go, rather than relying on the principles of hard work and character to propel them forward in the workplace.
Within the past few years, colleges have adapted in order to meet the demands of their students.
“Colleges have made changes … to accommodate transitioning students to ensure they feel comfortable, welcomed, entertained, and fulfilled,” one Forbes contributor wrote. “Fitness centers, on-campus groups, flexible class schedules … have set up students for their quarter-life crisis when they enter their first job and find exactly the opposite of what they had in college. Many millennials find rigid work schedules, ‘butt-in-seat’ culture, and inflexible environments when they land their first job.”
Just as those adaptations cater to the physical and social demands of millennials, campus “safe spaces” and “Bias Response Groups” cater to mental demands. The insistence of colleges to keep their “customers” happy has provided millennials with unrealistic expectations when they enter the workforce.
