The tech industry is undergoing a transformative change — one that will continue in the coming years. Millennials are now the largest living generation, and 75% of the workforce is expected to be comprised of millennials by the year 2025. Understanding millennials and technology in the workplace is key to the success of your company.
In an era where the gig economy is already knocking at our doors, engaging millennials has become imperative for every company. An engaged workforce is not only more productive, but also reduces employee turnover as well. Whether you’re a startup or an enterprise-level business, hiring developers is a process requiring many resources.
Engaging the existing talent and retaining them is a more viable alternative instead. Understanding the psychology behind millennials is an important factor for engaging the generation that already constitutes a major part in the existing workforce.
How are millennial employees different from their predecessors?
Millennials have grown up with technology. In fact, they’re the last generation to remember a world without the internet in every home. Since they have had such widespread exposure to the evolution of tech, they expect technology to be a part of their work culture as well.
Not only are millennials more adaptable to change than the previous generations, but they are also more likely to push for change. Millennials are prone to using technology to transform workflows and increase workplace efficiency.
So, how can you keep up? Here are four ways to leverage technology to engage millennials at work.
Understanding Millennials and Technology in the Workplace: 4 Ways to Leverage Technology to Improve Millennial Engagement
1. Use Collaborative Tech Tools
Collaboration has come a long way from being an industry buzzword to an organizational necessity. Ideas developed by groups involving three or more individuals are more likely to have a wider appeal than those developed by individuals. This is the reason why tech giants like Google give special emphasis to collaboration and have groups of three work on projects.
Technology acts as the biggest facilitator for collaborative work. Collaboration systems offer the workers a dynamic way to work and even make remote work a possibility. There are several collaboration tools available in the market to choose from like Asana, Basecamp, and Jira which are specifically aimed at promoting collaboration on tech projects. Collaborative technology also facilitates employee recruitment and on-boarding, resulting in seamless assimilation of the new hire into the company culture.
Interactive tools like digital whiteboards and file sharing platforms are no longer optional for your workplace — they are necessary additions to your organization’s tech portfolio. These tools provide employees with instant access to work-related information while creating a bond among the team and raising the level of engagement.
2. Gamify Your Rewards Program (but Not Recognition)
Gamification programs have successfully demonstrated a rise in engagement and productivity of millennial workers. The secret behind a gamification strategy is that it combines technology with human psychology.
While gamification of an employee’s recognition program is a big no-no, gamifying your rewards program can make it more effective. You might be wondering why you should never gamify recognition: doing this encourages employees to recognize each other for the wrong reasons, and this results in recognition not having the impact it should on your organization.
In case of tech talent, the introduction of hackathons is a great way of driving engagement while promoting innovation and teamwork at the same time. Gamification can also be used as a way to make the daily mundane activities (like training and development) more interesting and engaging.
3. Encourage Mobile Learning
To understand millennials and technology in the workplace, you need to know how they learn. The traditional training methodologies no longer apply to millennials since they are accustomed to consuming knowledge on-the-go. Initializing mobile learning within your organization not only promotes engagement, but it also enables you to easily measure what they learn and how quickly they learn it.
In a rapidly transforming world, training and development should be at the forefront of your organization strategy. Training initiatives are highly valued by the employees and are a profitable investment to ensure employee engagement.
According to Stack Overflow’s global developer hiring landscape report, 87 percent of developers have taught themselves a new language, framework or technology without enrolling in a formal course, all through mobile technology. This is a tool you can leverage in your workplace to encourage learning and development, and grow the skills of your employees.
A custom-developed micro-learning mobile app is an excellent resource to facilitate learning. If your company doesn’t have access to these resources, there are several learning apps and websites that offer access to bite-sized training modules that the employee can consume mobily.
The members of the modern workforce have an increasing need for work-life balance, especially with 10-hour days and working nights becoming more common. Mobile learning gives them access to resources millennials can use at their leisure.. This boosts engagement and also reduces costs of traditional training sessions.
4. Incorporate Agile Processes
Millennials lead a fast-paced life and organizations need to provide pathways for innovative practices. One thing you can do to increase engagement is remove your teams from distinct silos and incorporate agile processes at work.
Innovation thrives when your team is free to explore new ideas and iterate. Millennials prefer transparency in organizational practices, and an agile framework thrives on communication and honesty. You can use technology to collect employee feedback and continuously incorporate it into your organizational workflows can give them the much-needed safety net to innovate.
If you want to successfully engage millennial employees, fostering innovation needs to upgrade from being a singular objective to being incorporated as a part of your company culture.
Take Action
Understanding millennials and technology in the workplace is not only important for boosting employee engagement, but it also results in a culture of transparency and flexibility. This workplace culture is highly valued by the millennial generation. Empower your workplace to be a place where employees have the freedom to choose (and they choose to stay).
Want to learn more? Request a demo with Fond to see how you can leverage our unique technology to improve engagement in your workplace.
