Millennials Want Feedback: What Will You Tell Them?

During the first quarter of 2015, Millennials (adults aged 18 to 34) surpassed Generation X to become the largest share of the American workforce, according to Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.¹

Every company seeking to accelerate its performance needs to figure out how to engage and motivate this critical pool of talent. So, what is it Millennials want?

Despite the stereotype that this generation is disaffected and difficult to work with, Millennials want to hear your feedback even more than their older colleagues do.

Your Millennials want more frequent feedback.
According to a recent survey cited in Harvard Business Review, Millennials want much more coaching than workers from earlier generations. They want feedback from their managers weekly and monthly, while non-Millennials prefer to receive feedback quarterly or even annually.²

Which raises an important question: If you plan to give Millennial workers the additional feedback they want, what should you focus on during those coaching discussions?

The ability to credibly communicate is key to Millennial success.To be successful at work, Millennials — who prefer to communicate via technology and work in teams rather than face-to-face as individual contributors — need to develop a new comfort and confidence in communicating their ideas to others.

They need to be able to design, deliver, and defend those ideas when presenting them to colleagues, customers, and especially senior executives.

Regular coaching in this area, using an easy-to-use communication framework and tool like the Mandel BLUEPRINT^®, may be the key to unleashing stronger performance.

When the largest portion of the American workforce can successfully advocate for its best ideas, I believe performance will skyrocket. Within your own organization, developing the ability of your Millennials to credibly communicate can result in tremendous benefits, including helping you to lower turnover, avoid project management failure, and accelerate profitable innovation.

Do you want to unleash innovation and accelerate performance at your organization? Train your Millennials to credibly deliver and defend their best ideas. Check out Mandel’s presentation training program: The Extraordinary Presenter^™

_{¹ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/11/millennials-surpass-gen-xers-as-the-largest-generation-in-u-s-labor-force/}

_{² https://hbr.org/2015/02/millennials-want-to-be-coached-at-work&cm_sp=Article-_-Links-_-Top%20of%20Page%20Recirculation;}