4 Employers Perks and Practices That Millennials Love

One of the year’s biggest headlines in the HR world was that millennials have officially become the largest generation in the workforce. For employers and HR professionals, this development signals the need to move away from a baby boomer-focused talent management strategy, in favor of an approach that centers on millennials. Many employers have already adapted to the new realities of the workforce, and it’s time for the stragglers to get on board, too – or else they may see their employer brands go stale and fall out of touch with today’s talent market.

If employers want to engage with the contemporary, millennial-heavy workforce, they’ll need start implementing the sorts of perks and practices that millennials love. We’ve highlighted five such powerful incentives below:

1. Healthy Work Environments

Millennials are less concerned with health insurance than older generations, according to an Aon Hewitt survey, but they do want to be healthy. The millennials simply approach health in a different way. For example, millennials are:

-more likely to engage in regular exercise;

-more open to having their direct managers play active roles in encouraging them to get and stay healthy;

-more concerned about the impact of healthy work environments on their overall well-being;

-and more concerned about not only physical health, but also emotional, financial, and social health.

If health insurance is the sum total of your well-being program, millennial workers will be less than impressed. For millennials, health insurance is a push factor, not a pull factor: They’re annoyed when it isn’t there, but it isn’t sufficient on its own to win them over.

If you want millennials to love your brand, you’ll need to start adopting the health perks and practices they adore. Embrace a more holistic approach to mental and physical health that supports millennial attitudes – but be sure that your new health perks and practices don’t alienate the older generations.

For example, on-site showers, secure bicycle storage, and smartphone-friendly health and well-being programs are the kinds of things that slake the millennial thirst for regular exercise and healthy living. Ditching the dull, gray offices of yore in favor of ergonomic, health-conscious, and collaborative work environments will also really resonate with Gen. Y.

2. Work-Life Balance

Given how much millennials value work-life balance, we could start calling them the “Zen Generation.” Millennials want flexibility in terms of when and how they work. They are more willing than any other generation to accept pay cuts, pass up promotions, and/or relocate in exchange for better work life-balance, according to a survey from Ernst & Young. 

If you want millennials to love your brand, you need to build one that not only embraces flexible working practices, but also creates a pathway to success that doesn’t require staff members to work 60-hour weeks just to get ahead.

3. Collaboration

A 2014 Globoforce survey  found that people who have strong, friendly relationships with their peers at work are more engaged and more likely to stay at a company for longer. Millennials desire positive, collaborative environments, and employers who don’t provide such environments will repel millennial talent.

Employers that build cultures in which trust, respect, and teamwork are valued and expected will find themselves adored by millennials – not to mention older generations of workers, who benefit just as much from strongly knit workplaces. Let the millennial optimism lead the way here.

4. Responsibility

Career progression is a powerful driving force for millennials, but they can be become frustrated if opportunities do not appear quickly enough for their tastes.

Try to create a management culture that is prepared to take risks on ambitious, brave, younger workers, rather than one that always looks to the external marketplace for new talent. Research shows  promoting from within costs less than hiring external talent, and that internal candidates often perform better than their external counterparts. So, you don’t really have a good reason not to trust your talented millennial workers with more responsibility.

Build an environment that demonstrates clear faith in young people, and millennials will adore your organization

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What’s especially great about these perks and practices is that, although they respond to the concerns of millennials, they can be of great benefit to workers of all generations. You don’t need to throw baby boomers and Gen. X-ers to the side just to appease millennial talent. By responding the the desires of millennial workers, you can enrich the workplace experience for all of your employees, no matter their age.