If you want your business to remain at the forefront of its market for years to come, you’re going to need to start injecting some young blood into your workforce — pronto! By switching your hiring focus to late Millennials and early Generation-Zers, you will have the capacity to onboard new employees who are up to date with the latest societal trends, topics, and changes. Furthermore, with these staff members on board, you will find it easier to provide your consumers with the expected level of service today.
When you do start providing hiring opportunities to Millennial/Gen Z employees, you must go above and beyond to gain their respect. Once you cultivate a distinct level of trust and admiration amongst your young staff members, you will be sure to extract a focused, productive, and efficient workflow from them daily.
Here are two things you must do to gain respect from today’s young workforce:
Show them respect
Respect goes both ways… if you want to gain it, you also have to show it!
Today’s young Millennial/Generation-Z workforce doesn’t like to be spoken down to or ordered around in a rude or belittling fashion. Instead, they want to feel appreciated, which is why you must go above and beyond to show them the utmost respect at all conceivable points. It doesn’t matter how much younger they are than you. If you’re serious about engaging your young employees on a deeper level, you must value them just as highly as you value your most experienced staff members.
Treat them as individuals
Having grown up with social media quite literally at their fingertips, today’s young workforce is well versed when it comes to voicing their opinions. Unfortunately, this makes them incredibly individualistic, which in turn means that they desire to be treated as individuals. Should you fail to tailor your leadership style around the independent workers that you employ, you will be deemed conceited and arrogant. This will result in your young employees losing respect for you and ultimately ruin the flow of communication that you share with them.
Quite simply, you must go above and beyond to treat your Millennial/Generation-Z workers as individuals. To aid you in your bid to inject a distinct personal touch into your managerial style, you’re going to need to engage your staff members on a psychological level. If you’re serious about performing this all-important task, you should seriously consider obtaining a PhD in Organizational Psychology. This will help you to gain a deeper understanding of how your individual employees operate in the workplace, which in turn will aid you in your bid to promote a healthier working environment for all.
Do you want to lead a talented team of young workers to a sustained period of success in the world of business? To succeed with this endeavor, you’re going to need to earn the respect of the Millennials and Generation-Zers that you employ. So put the above advice into practice, and you’ll be sure to do just that.
