Staff Management

Nine Keys to Managing Millennial Employees

By Thuy-Lan Nguyen, OD

Dec. 9, 2015

SYNOPSIS

Effectively managing Millennials requires a new approach to training, motivating and rewarding employees. Build a dynamic staff with nine key strategies.

ACTION POINTS

EMPHASIZE COLLABORATION & INSPIRE GREATER PERFORMANCE. Stress team work, and create opportunities for teams of employees to give back to your local community. Happier employees will produce more for your patients.

GIVE FREQUENT FEEDBACK. Review performances quarterly, offer praise and challenge areas, and show growth pathways.

OFFER NON-TRADITIONAL BENEFITS. Millennials valueflexible work schedules, and opportunities to work on things they are passionate about.

Millennials, those born between 1980 and 1995, are now the largest segment of the population. As Baby Boomers retire from the workforce, Millennials are quickly taking their place, and will eventually out-number both Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, and Generation X employees, born between 1965 and 1979.

I am now on the faculty at Nova Southeastern University College of Optometry, but I formerly owned a practice in Pembroke Pines, Fla. While in practice, I reached out to my Millennial staff members by having us participate as a group in the ALS charity, the Ice Bucket Challenge, in which individuals and businesses were challenged to contribute a donation to the research to find a cure for this disease, or else to pour a bucket of ice water over their heads. Many began accepting this challenge, on camera and posted online, as a way of raising awareness for the cause.

Some of my employees thought I was kidding when I announced that the office was going to do the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge together. They thought I was crazy when I bought the bags of ice and lined up all the buckets. Then, when I informed them that we also were donating to ALS research in honor of one of our patients, they were more than happy to participate. When it was done, we all felt great. It was a good team-building experience that also helped a good cause.

VM Millennial Project

Vision Mondayhas launched the VM Millennial Project: Resources for Defining a Generation that Defies Description, a series of resources on aspects of the Millennial generation, including how practices can best market to, and serve, this young generation.

Click HERE to access VM Millennial Project: Resources for Defining a Generation that Defies Description.

Emphasize Opportunities to Work in Groups

In addition to participating as a group in charities that benefit your community, or the world, Millennials have also been shown to enjoy doing their everyday tasks in a cooperative, rather than competitive, fashion. This generation is said to be very educated, tech savvy and able to multitask. They are the social media generation, so they often prefer to work in groups instead of individually. Baby Boomers more often prefer to work alone, at their own pace.

POSITIVE OUTCOME: When we planneda trunk show, I allowed a group of employees to choose a theme, decorate and market the event. I used this group approach to getting work for the show done instead of assigning one person to the decorations, and a different person assigned to the food, and other individuals assigned to each other task.

The team worked together to make decisions as a whole. And as soon as a date and theme was set, they instantly posted onto their personal Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts to tell their friends and family to save the date for the event. For the day of the trunk show, they decided on their own to coordinate outfits and accessories. They liked feeling like a unified team.

Engage Millennials With Green & Staff-Driven Initiatives

The Millennial generation is known for a drive to give back to their community. One way to do this is by promoting to staff and patients that you have a green office, in which your electronic records enable you to rarely print out documents.

You can track your paper usage, and put up a sign in your office touting your small use of paper, and you can make the items you do print last longer by laminating them.

Staff members can also generate their own charitable initiatives. You can ask staff members to submit ideas for charities the practice can contribute to as a group, and then have the whole practice vote on which to get involved with.

An easy one for the holiday season? Toys for Tots. All you need is a box to collect the toys, an employee with a truck or SUV to transport the donations to the nearest Toys for Tots pick-up point.

Click HERE to learn more about how to contribute to Toys for Tots. —ROB Editors

Enable Employees to Give Back to Community

Giving back to the community is a priority for Millennial employees. They get job satisfaction when they know that their job allows them to do something good for their community or the world.

POSITIVE OUTCOME: As I described earlier, I encouragedemployees to participate in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge in 2014, but we all did it together as a group–doctors, techs, opticians and receptionists.

Practices should strive to give back, but also consider encouraging employees to participate together in a group cancer walk or toy drive. Those types of activities may have nothing to do with your day-to-day optometric practice, but if a Millennial employee feels good about the company they work for, they are more willing to go above and beyond when it’s important.

Manage Expectations for Fast Promotions

Millennials sometimes feel more entitled because they are more educated, and they expect instant gratification.

POSITIVE OUTCOME: When putting together a development plan for a newly hired Millennial employee, consider specific goals and deadlines. Once the project or goal is achieved, consider a raise or bonus. If they are able to complete the project early, Millennials expect to be rewarded. They do not want to wait until their official anniversary date. For example, if you hire an insurance-savvy individual to lower your AR, set a specific goal. Once they have lowered the AR to the amount you want, consider an immediate incentive reward for that individual.

Rethink Annual Performance Reviews

Millennials can be impatient, and may not be willing to wait a year, or five years, for a raise or promotion. Practices that traditionally perform yearly performance reviews may need to rethink their policies for Millennial employees. Millennials value their performance one project at a time, not one day or month or year at a time. So, instead of annual performance reviews, a business may want to consider giving their employees specific projects with goals and deadlines. Then immediately after that project is completed, have an immediate performance review and give instant feedback.

POSITIVE OUTCOME: After a big trunk show, have a meeting and acknowledge what was done successfully. Then discuss what you learned and what can be improved for the next event. If the event was successful, consider bonuses in the form of gift cards, or a dinner for the entire office. Encourage team building by rewarding the entire office for one individual’s, or one group’s, job well done.

Recruit Via Social Media

The best way to recruit Millennials is by using multiple social media outlets. Practices may have to post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a stellar employee, ask them for a referral. Smart, hardworking individuals typically associate with other smart, hardworking individuals. Practices may also want to consider recruiting from their favorite local non-optometry business.

If you are looking for a good salesperson, keep an eye out for someone with good customer service the next time you go shopping. Millennials tend to adapt and learn new things quickly, so many would not have a hard time adapting to the optical industry. Skills can be taught, whereas personality cannot.

Think Creatively About Benefits & Motivation

Practices may also have to think out of the box when it comes to employee benefits. Successful multi-billion dollar companies, such as Richard Branson’s Virgin, offer unlimited vacation time. Eligible employees at Virgin can take as much time off as they like without tracking the amount of time taken, and without even worrying about getting prior approval. The only requirement at Virgin is for the employee to ensure that all of their projects are completed, and that their time off will not affect any other team members. *This may not be realistic for a small business, but practices may want to consider offering non-traditional benefits such as flexible work schedules or laundry services, day care allowances or other perks.

If a raise is not in your budget, there are ways to reward a Millennial that do not cost money. Millennials want to be known for their individuality, so find out what is valuable for each employee as an individual. As a practice owner or manager, if a raise is not in your budget, but you want to praise an employee, consider a donation to their favorite charity in their name. Or consider paying them for a day of volunteering at a charity of their choice outside of the office. Consider encouraging the entire office to get involved in charitable activities together.

Allow them to do things outside of their usual job description if it’s for a good cause. If you discover that an employee is passionate about cars, consider rewarding them with tickets to a car show. It will encourage a team environment and keep a Millennial excited about their job and your office. Happy employees produce more happy patients.

Use Millennial Strength in Outside-the-Box Thinking

Millennials tend to think outside of the box more than Baby Boomers. For example, when a new product comes out, they are more likely to research online and read reviews and testimonials instantly, instead of relying on written research that was performed a year or more in the past. Millennials also tend to be more efficient. They don’t like to waste time. If a practice is used to doing things a certain way just because that’s how they’ve always done it, a Millennial may question the methods.

It may seem as if a Millennial employee is skipping steps, but to them, they don’t like to duplicate efforts or do things that aren’t necessary if they can achieve the same end result. Not only are they faster and more creative when marketing on social media, Millennials are more likely to ask Facebook or YouTube the best way to do something. They know how to use social media to get practice information, as well. If a practice needs a repair, or is interested in using a new vendor, Millennials don’t pick up the phone. They don’t wait on hold. They get faster responses when posting a comment on Facebook or on the company’s web site.

Streamline Information & Tasks

Since many Millennials are constantly on social media and multi-tasking, they also can be easily distracted. If you give a Millennial employee until the end of the day to complete a task, and they finish it in an hour, they see nothing wrong with spending the rest of the day socializing or taking it easy, since they already did what you asked them to do.Some Millennials need constant supervision, or they may socialize for the day and complete the task in the last hour of the day. Millennials value the work getting done and the end result, not the hours that it takes to do it. Millennials learn quickly, but don’t give them a manual or a book an inch thick. Send them a link or a PDF.

And because social media is a way of life for Millennials, any time something happens to them, they want to text their friends about it or post it immediately. If handled correctly, practices can find a way to use this tendency to their advantage. If you get a new frame line, let your Millennial employee put it on, take selfies and post right away to practice social media accounts, and even their personal accounts. They will get instant feedback from their network of friends and family and generate excitement about the practice.

Text, Don’t Call

Don’t expect your Millennial employees to call you. They will text you. Millennials often feel like a phone call is an inconvenience to you. Texting is their official form of communication. You can let them know that you expect them to answer the phone when you call them at the office during work hours, but you might make the communication easier for both of you by trying to text them first.

Thuy-Lan Nguyen, OD, practices in South Florida and teaches at Nova Southeastern University College of Optometry. To contact her: TLNGUYEN@nova.edu

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