For millennials and government work, the generation gap might not be so drastic.
True, the federal workforce has the lowest level of millennial workers in a decade. Worker morale for millennials in government is low. Yet, as a new study notes, millennial aversion to a government job isn’t so strong and insurmountable.
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The study, from Deloitte consulting and written by Peter Viechnicki, analyzes four popular myths.
- “Millennials have higher turnover rates than prior generations”
Viechnicki found that previous studies used tenure as a proxy instead of actual turnover rates. When adjusted for age, high turnover isn’t such a grave problem. How to attract millennials to government jobs remains an issue, but it’s a separate problem. Some initiatives, such as student loan repayment benefits, have proven to be popular for attracting millennials.
“When young workers do leave government jobs, their decision to do so can be explained largely by their age and the business cycle, rather than by a generational propensity to hop from one job to another,” Viechnicki wrote.
- “Millennials are less passionate about their jobs in government”
For the federal government, this was a good news-bad news situation. Young government workers aren’t a standout in lacking passion about working for the government. However, “the perception that young government employees are less engaged may be an artifact of the overall decline in government employee engagement of all generations.” Millennials are following their older peers and parents in that morale has fallen across age groups.
- “Millennials don’t stick around—they’ll decamp to the private sector in a heartbeat”
That myth seems false, though the data isn’t so clear. Young government workers, for instance, are less likely to look for a new job compared with older workers, and those numbers have declined slowly since 2002. That could be a sign that, for those who head into a government job, they expect to stay within the public sector long term. However, that shows a self-selection bias, and plans can change. If those millennials get married and have to move for a spouse’s job, replacing them could become an issue.
- “It’s harder to recruit millennials for public service than previous generations”
On that myth, Deloitte couldn’t say whether it’s true or false: “more choice now exists for Millennials who want to go into societal impact work, but it remains to be seen whether these new choices will channel young workers away from government jobs in the long run as they become available.” There’s also an issue that, as millennials entered the workforce, government hiring was frozen or reduced. As baby boomers retire, millennial representation could smooth out the data to make the current level look like a blip rather than a trend.
To boost millennial representation, Viechnicki recommends more published data on millennials in government, ignoring mythical generational differences, and craft attractive benefits programs for millennials.
Millennials might express more support of libertarianism in some polls, but a rabid aversion to government work it isn’t. Like other generations, millennials have to make a choice between the private sector and the government sector. If the government can’t persuade with its pitch, the private sector will attract away millennials.
