Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that millennials now make up the largest percentage of the U.S. workforce, according to the Pew Research Center
If you take a good look at any workplace today, you can quickly validate that statistic even without extensive research. Almost everything being said about millennials confirms that these workers come with an entirely new set of expectations for their workplace. With the influx of this generation into the workforce, the worker experience is now becoming as important as customer experience. There is no doubt that the millennials in the workforce today are bringing values to work that are different than previous generations, and they have high expectations regarding what their work environment should be like.
Research shows that the majority of millennials want to work in a place where they can make a difference, and that they prefer a collaborative work culture. They want managers who give them room for self-expression and autonomy. This may seem a little idealistic (or even unrealistic) to anyone who has been in the workforce a long time. Many longstanding employees view work as a place where they can advance and make more money. However, for the millennial demographic, money is no longer the main driver. Meaningful work is.
So what does that mean for marketers? Actually, a lot. Customer experience has been the mantra in marketing for some time. But if worker experience is rising in importance as well, then not only do we need to worry about providing the best tools to meet our customers’ expectations, we need to provide them to our employees, too. There is a heightened need for businesses to transform the worker experience not only to make millennials more likely to stick around, but to make work more efficient as well—and all that will positively impact the customer experience.
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Nick Romano is cofounder and CEO of Toronto-based customer communications management firm Prinova. Find him on Twitter @NickRPrinova.