Are You Listening and Saying Enough to Your Employees?
By Mithran Balakrishnan, Corporate & Commercial Strategy Director
Listening is not measured by your understanding but by whether the person speaking felt understood.
Millennials or Generation Y (or as I personally like to call them “the-generation-that-has-too-many-labels-to-cope-with”) are also known as Generation ‘WHY’ and it is comprised of those born between 1980 and 1999 (albeit there are differing opinions as to the range of years with marginal difference). Now before I come across as being yet another ‘senior’ member with an overbearing opinion on this generation, let me clarify that I too belong to this group.
As history has shown time and again, each generation is vastly different from its predecessors and the same stands true for millennials. In a survey conducted by Beyond.com, 86% of HR professionals were of the opinion that millennials are tech savvy, 39% described them as fun-loving, 11% called them hard-working and only 1% were of the opinion that they are loyal to their employers.
These findings are in stark contrast to what the millennials thought of themselves in the same survey. 35% said they are tech savvy, 14% said they are fun loving, 65% were of the opinion that they are people-savvy, and (here comes the shocker) 82% felt that they are loyal to their employers.
Millennials are commonly tagged with connotations such as being overconfident, requiring instant gratification and are non-conformists amongst others and there certainly is a yawning gap between what millennials think of themselves versus what the rest of the older generation thinks of them.
What the latter fails to understand is that millennials are a generation that thrive on feedback and they want it NOW and require it consistently. Such is the need for feedback that a lack of it can easily trigger a Gen-Y employee to leave their job.
Those Annual Performance Reviews Alone Just Won’t Cut It
A millennial worker and associate account manager at Pearl Meyer (in the US), Itala Keller, said this: “I can’t envision working a whole year without hearing how I’m doing. I want to know how my performance is, what needs to be improved and what is going well so I know which direction to [focus on].”
While feedback assessments and performance reviews are coordinated by HR, the real onus lies with line managers. Managers of today need to stay relevant and be aware that merely relying on traditional annual performance reviews (which are usually tied to bonuses, increments and promotions) are no longer sufficient.
A survey revealed that while 64% of employees want their supervisors to check-in with them at least every fortnightly, 42% of millennial employees preferred weekly check-ins.
But here’s the thing. A survey conducted by Gallup revealed that 19% of millennials say they receive continuous feedback and only 17% said the feedback they received was meaningful.
Why is this the case? Is it because millennials aren’t making enough of an effort to approach their managers or their Gen X managers are just uncomfortable with the need for multiple feedback conversations?
According to Gallup, “Leaders and managers might be tempted to point the finger at their youngest workers for falling short on communicating their desire for feedback. However, managers also need to take initiative and increase the amount of feedback they provide — regardless of what their millennial workers may or may not request.
“That initiative could have a powerful effect on employee engagement. Millennials who meet with their manager on a regular basis are more than twice as likely as their generational peers to be engaged at work.”
Managers therefore need to become leaders who understand what it takes to bring out the best from all their team members while juggling the ‘employer’ role, to ensure they each get value from their roles. This requires managers to understand the way millennials operate without trying to be one.
Managers need to remember that millennials are typically willing to do what it takes to succeed but not if there is a hint of disconnect between their objectives (and growth) and what their leaders preach and are seen to be doing.
How often have we seen social media posts with the message that “people leave managers, not companies” inscripted within it? Likewise, millennials stay on in a role, department or company because of leaders who serve as mentors (rather than bosses) in their career.
Need for Less Regular, but In-Depth Assessments As Well
Those continuous feedback conversations mentioned above are indeed critical to the millennial workers’ growth. However, there is also the need for a more in-depth and holistic assessment to be conducted from time to time to allow for transparent feedback between individuals from different generations. It is, after all, critical to the self-awareness of an employee.
A 360-degree assessment (which usually comprises of employees, vendors and customers among others) often helps bring blind spots into direct vision. Results of this assessment are then made available to the individual and their immediate managers for them to act on the data and transform themselves into better leaders.
An effective 360 exercise will enable each individual to compare the scores of their self-assessment against the average scores given to them by their colleagues. In addition to that, the scoring will also enable individuals to get a reality check on how they’ve scored in comparison to their teammates and members of other departments in the company.
Most importantly though, 360-degree assessments help individuals realise if they fit the working culture and environment of an organisation, if they fit their existing role, and if they’re doing what they’re really interested in. If this results in a high employee turnover, then it is not necessarily an organisational weakness.
Purely running an assessment without a subsequent game plan is risky because it would leave employees clueless as to what to do with their results. Engaging each member to identify solutions for their challenges is important as it ensures that they take accountability of their career progress.
As this is not a top-down approach where the manager instructs them on what to do, this practice is also empowering because it forces the individual to think and act on their own. Leaders should ensure that discussions result in clear timelines with proper action plans.
Frequent Interactions and Higher Engagement
Sending them a text message, or a chat message on the company’s chat room, or even walking over to their desk from time to time, are what leaders should strive to do with their millennial employees.
Gallup notes that “daily connects are not 30-minute meetings; they are meant to provide opportunities for informal, ongoing communication.”
Millennials certainly have the drive to climb up the corporate ladder fast and are typically willing to do what it takes to make it and for this to happen, their managers need to keep an ear to the ground while staying on track with the direction of the organisation.
In the words (or at least along the lines) of Dr. Dave Ulrich, whose conference I once attended, “listening is not measured by your understanding but by whether the person speaking felt understood”. Your ‘internal customers’ need to feel understood in order for them to invest in what you have to say.
Managers caught up in the idea that millennials will just need to accept the traditional way of work and culture, will need to wake up and face the following fact; two out of three millennials hope to switch companies by 2020.
In a Nutshell
Millennials are no longer a force of the future – they are here today and steps to enable and benefit both parties must be paid attention to.
Dear leaders, be genuine in what you do; have a process and routine to ensure that such engagements are not done on an ad-hoc basis and instead are done consistently and effectively. The HR function may place certain processes and structures in place, but it ultimately lies in the hands of you, the individual leader (not manager), to make it happen.
Don’t forget that it is often the smallest of gestures and the human element that truly makes a difference in anyone’s lives.
Lava is an authorised Salesforce Partner in Malaysia and has more than a decade of experience in cloud solutions which includes marketing automation, CRM implementation, change management, and consultation. We pride ourselves in not just being a CRM partner but in also understanding the needs of our customers and taking their business to the next level.