What Do Millennials Want at Work?

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It’s not just avocado on toast.

Our survey of millennial employees uncovered that just 44 percent of millennials in all U.S. businesses are having a positive experience at work—the lowest figure of any generation.

We collected over 267,000 unique comments about what makes workplaces great and what could make them better.  One new theme emerged this year among millennials: they are talking about caregiving responsibilities, especially paternity leave, more than other generations.

Millennials care about paternity leave and eldercare support.

More Gen Xers report that they have caregiving responsibility for both children and elders overall. But millennials mention these issues three times more than any other generation in their comments.

Millennials in managerial positions in particular voice a strong desire to take paternity leave. Dads now want to be sure they have time to participate and support their children, partners, and families.

Some companies are listening to their people and making life easier for millennial parents. One millennial Father in our data set was able to support his family because of a supportive workplace culture.

“During the birth of our second child, my wife experienced a medical emergency and had to undergo two surgeries along with several weeks of recovery. During this time, I was able to leverage paid paternity leave to be there for my family. My team took care of all my responsibilities while I was out, to enable me to focus fully on supporting my family.”

Millennials with extensive caregiving duties can feel excluded from coming up with new and better ways of doing things at work. Those with eldercare responsibilities are nearly 25 percent less likely to feel they can contribute fully to innovation activities. So if you want to grow as a business, it’s vital that you do what you can to support their caregiving needs.

Why? Because when millennials have a great experience at work, they will stay. In fact, they are 50 times more likely to plan a long-term future with your company if you provide them with a high-trust culture. By the way, this makes them more loyal than their parents’ generation.

Don’t let this generation go misunderstood. When it comes to managing people, it’s not a one-size-fits all approach. Listen to the needs of millennials and start realizing the full power of this unique generation at work.

Claire Hastwell

Claire is our Content Marketing Manager. She works with our data and culture experts to bring you the most useful insights and advice. When she’s not penning blogs on work culture, she’s rolling out her yoga mat, resisting the urge to eat peanut butter pretzels, and comparing Australian and American colloquialisms.

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To be eligible for the World’s Best Workplaces list, a company must apply and be named to a minimum of 5 national Best Workplaces lists within our current 58 countries, have 5,000 employees or more worldwide, and at least 40% of the company’s workforce (or 5,000 employees) must be based outside of the home country. Extra points are given based on the number of countries where a company surveys employees with the Great Place to Work Trust Index©, and the percentage of a company’s workforce represented by all Great Place to Work surveys globally. Candidates for the 2017 Worlds Best Workplaces list will have appeared on national workplaces lists published in September 2016 through August 2017.

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