If your leadership philosophy doesn’t include a higher sense of purpose, you may soon be losing your millennials.
According to a recent Deloitte survey, 66% of millennials expect to leave their current jobs by 2020.
Deloitte’s study revealed a major shift in leadership philosophy.
Millennials now represent a majority of the workforce. Indeed, some of those surveyed were department heads (12%), senior management, and company board members (7%). They represent a shift in leadership philosophy that uses a new metric for success.
While lack of leadership opportunities was the #1 reason millennials felt the need to shop around on the job market, the #2 reason was a missing sense of higher purpose at their jobs.
Millennials measure success differently.
Survey questions about the reasons for wanting to leave revealed that there’s a huge gap in the way people measure success.
An overwhelmingly large percentage (87%) of millennials surveyed across the world believe that financial performance isn’t the only way to define success.
How do they measure a company’s worth, then? Millennials place importance on the following factors:
- job satisfaction
- skills development
- income improvements for employees
- creating jobs
- providing a product or services that makes the world a better place by improving people’s lives
Compared to traditional bottom-line measures of corporate success, this “wider purpose” set of metrics represents a real departure from the status quo. The Deloitte team calls this the “purpose gap”.
So, what can companies do to close that gap?
Use your strengths to do things in the community.
Closing the purpose gap and satisfying Millennials’ desire to find a higher purpose at work isn’t easy. Coming off as false by applying a slap-dash solution can easily backfire.
One step towards closing the gap is finding ways your company can integrate with the local community and get involved to instigate positive change.
By using your strength to do good things, there’s no question you’re increasing goodwill all around. But simply writing a check donation check doesn’t exactly create that sense of higher purpose that millennials seek.
Give everyone a chance to participate.
By choosing charity events that get everyone involved at all levels of your organization, you’re making it clear that doing good things is important. Giving everyone the chance to participate in your corporate social responsibility program means you’re cultivating a sense of greater purpose…the kind that millennials seek.
An example is a charity team building workshop where mixed groups come together to build things for local charitable organizations. From leadership on down, anyone can participate to do good things where the result is positive change both in the community and at work. It’s part of a greater leadership philosophy everyone can appreciate, even millennials!