What are the millennials looking for ?

Hiring and retaining talents is a perennial challenge for all SME. But what do we understand what the millennial workers are looking for ?

Understanding what the millennials are looking for and identifying the mismatches in the expectations vs what a career in an SME can offers, provides powerful insights on what could you as a leader in your company, close this mismatch gapping through job re-engineering, remuneration alignment, restructuring of benefits and the recalibration of the corporate values and culture.

In a recent 2019 Deloitte Millennial Global Mindset and Outlook Survey released on 21/5/2019 over 13,416 millennials aged 25 to 36 years old (Generation Z, born 1995 to 2002) across 42 countries revealed the following interesting findings on Singapore millennials:

  • Singapore millennials more pessimistic, less satisfied with lives than peers around the world (SG: 80%, World: 67%).
  • Overall lower score on Deloitte’s new mood index (an index that track how optimistic respondents are about key political, personal, environmental and socio-economic topics from year to year). (Mood index, SG: 35, World: 39) with women more pessimistic than men.
  • Grimmer economic outlook on the next 12 months (% indicating improving outlook SG: 16%, World: 26%).
  • Lower trust in the positive impact of businesses on the wider society (81%).
  • Harder to get or change jobs in the future with automation and big data (SG: 61%, World: 46%).
  • Top 5 millennials ambitions:
    • Earning a high salary/Being wealthy (SG: 59%, World: 52%).
    • Explore the world (SG: 58%).
    • Buy your home (SG: 48%).
    • Contribute to the community (36%).
    • Have children or starting a family (35%).
  • Top 3 concerns:
    • Income inequality (28%).
    • Unemployment (27%).
    • Climate change (22%).

From a talent focus perspective, the following are some of the points of consideration in your next millennial hire:

  • Create and reinforce positive vibes on the impact that your company is making on the community via CSR, sustainability reporting and build a business around a sustainable model around the whole community ecology system.
  • Set clear and implementable corporate values on CSR and incorporate corporate impact programmes that involve all employees.
  • Make diversity and inclusion part of your corporate DNA.
  • Set top priority on reskilling and retraining and openly address concerns on job displacement on the back of automation, AI and big data.
  • Lead the way how the jobs will be re-designed in the future to address the job security concerns of the millennials.
  • Re-align remuneration package to give emphasis and weightage to pay component vs work life balance to provide employees with time to start a family, involve in community works and holidays to see the world.