Millennial job-hopping - it's not what you think!

Millennials, the on-demand, digital generation with an apparently insatiable appetite for instant gratification have long been thought of as serial job hoppers. They want more money, more responsibility and important sounding job titles… like five minutes ago. This is what most employers think, but recent research by the Resolution Foundation, has challenged these perspectives.

For example, millennials are not as transient as one might think. They are actually twice as likely to stay put in a job than those born ten years previously, opting for job security. However, Gallup research shows that millennial turnover as a result of poor employee engagement costs the US economy $30.5 billion per year. So the real question is not how companies can retain their millennial workforce, but how they can keep them better motivated.

Although places like Google and Facebook have pioneered workspaces with nap pods, on-site catered lunches and all sorts of other creative uses of space, there is no evidence to show that millennials need these any more than anyone else, or that these have increased engagement. Indeed, the two most important things to millennials are a solid salary and opportunities for promotion – just like Baby Boomers and Gen X. However, millennials appear to crave a more inclusive work ethos that they can believe in and actively promote than previous generations.

So how can companies better engage their millennial workforce?