My son recently graduated college with an interest ininternational relations. A few months ago, he said tome, "I know that making money is important, butwhat I really want to do is make a difference in the world." He is currently working for no pay as an intern for a foreign policy think tank in Washington,DC. He's paying his bills by working nights at a bar.My son is a "Millennial" (also called "Nexters" or Generation Y) (i.e., those born after 1980). What motivates them is different from what motivated my Baby Boomer generation peers and me. Getting ahead and succeeding financially are important to them but other things are important as well. Here are a few characteristics of today's Millennials: Millennials possess an earnestness and willingness to grapple with questions of ethics and morality that link them to the idealism once held by their Baby Boomer parents. Work-life balance is more than just a buzzword. They have seen their Baby Boomer parents work themselves to the ground and they know that there is more to life than work.
They are seeking to have fun both at work and away from work. Constant feedback is important to them. Millen -nials are accustomed to instant feedback. College grades are posted online as soon as tests are scored; bank account information is available 24/7. They want to know how they are doing on a daily basis. Long-term organizational loyalty is not important. They embrace change and are not afraid of changing jobs and organizations frequently.

THE PROBLEM
Organizations invest a great deal of time and money hiring and training young employees only to find that they move on after a year or two. A good salary, the promise of bonuses and pay increases, promotions, and long-term job security are the currency upon which many organizations have traditionally relied to entice employees tojoin and stay. But since many young employees don't find these appealing, alternative methods for attracting, motivating, and retaining employees are needed.

WHAT TO DO
There are no common solutions for working with all Gen Ys. However,organizations find that practicing the following ten rules aids in attracting, motivating, and most importantly retaining younger talented employees.

1. Promote the values of your organization. Tell the world what your organization stands for, what makes you unique, and what is your value proposition. Use this information in your recruiting. Also, continually communicate and promote this information to your employees, especially new employees. This will keep them motivated by helping them feel that they are a part of something that is important and worth their commitment.

2. Learn why young employees are leaving.Recently departed employees can often provide important insights about why young employees are leaving your organization. Traditional exit interviews, however, do not always yield valuable insights. How the data is collected is critical. Former employees must be assured that they will be not be burning their bridges by providing honest feedback. Using a third-party to interview former employees or to conduct an anonymous survey can increase the validity of the data.

3. Identify the best predictors of employee turnover and job performance. If many of your new employees are leaving, it may be that you've been basing your hiring decisions on the wrong information.
For example, let's say you find that most of the sales representatives you have been losing all graduated from Ivy-league universities or had grade point averages above 3.5. Maybe those aren't the people you should hire in the future.Most organizations have been recruiting at the same locations, and using the same job application, interview questions, and hiring procedures for years with only mixed results. There is no reason to expect that things will get any better without changing any of these practices. There is an objective, scientific, and relatively accurate approach that research has shown is generally more precise in predicting job success than testing, interviewing, or any other single approach to hiring. It is called "biodata" and is based on the principle "the past is the best predictor of the future." It can help you abandon selection practices that are only moderately successful by forcing you to focus on information about job applicants that is truly predictive of how well they will do on the job and how long they will stay.
The approach involves the following four steps:
First: Examine your personnel files and populate a database with every conceivable piece of information about each current and former employee you hired in the past several years. Include every detail from the job application, notes from job interviews, information on their resumes, scores on any tests you may have used, etc. Also include anything else that you now know about these employees (e.g., their life experiences, work experiences, interests, values,beliefs, attitudes, personality, personal habits, leadership skills, work style, outside-of-work activities,etc.). These are the predictors.
Second: Add to the database all information about their job performance that you would like to accurately predict, such as performance ratings, sales, productivity, attendance, work quality, and teamwork. Then add information about whether they are still with the organization or how long they stayed. These are the criteria that you want to predict.
Third: Conduct statistical analyses (i.e., correlation and regression analyses) to assess the relationships between the predictors and the criteria. (You mayneed a consultant to help you with this step in the process.) The goal is to find predictors that are highly correlated with the criteria. If the variables are highly correlated, one can be used to successfully predict the other. Regression analyses can also identify the combination of variables that can best predict the criteria.
Fourth: The best predictors should now be included in the information you gather during the hiring process. Some of the predictors may be ques tions that you will now have your interviewers ask job applicants. Other predictors might take the form of items you would include in the application form or in pre-hire tests. More commonly, a biodata questionnaire is constructed. (Here you may need the help of a consultant as well to help you develop and validate the biodata questionnaire.)

4. Ascertain what's driving them out before they leave. Conduct an anonymous survey of employees (or just those you want to keep). Ask them how they feel about their supervisors, management,communication, compensation, career advancement potential, work schedule, ability to use their skills on the job, etc. Also, ask if they intend to stay. Then correlate their views on these issues with their intentions to stay. This can help you identify what needs to be changed in order to reduce turnover.

5. Brand your organization as a fun place to work. Younger employees are attracted to organizations where there are other young employees and where special attention is devoted to creating a fun environment. Organizations focusing on creating an enjoyable environment do things such as Friday afternoon pizza parties, intramural sports teams, dress-down days, ice cream socials, ping-pong tournaments, and Thursday night informal gatherings at the local pub.

6. Develop an "on-boarding program." Provide new young employees with special attention during the first few months on the job. An on-boarding program for new employees can include special orientation sessions, opportunities to interact with other new employees, individual mentoring sessions, training programs, and surveys after 30, 60, and 90 days to find out how they are feeling about the organization.

7. Hire employees in groups rather than individually.
When I conduct focus groups of employees to learn how they feel about their work life, I typically start by asking, "What do you like about working here?" This usually stimulates a three- to five-minute discussion. Then I ask, "What don't you like about working here?" Typically, they then talk for most of the rest of our time together. At some point, I stop them and say, "You've all said a lot of negative things about working here, why do you stay?" One hundred percent of the time they say, "It's the people here that make us want to stay." Hiring a class of new recruits can help bind employees to your organization long-term. Thesocial and emotional attachments these employees will form with each other while they are becoming acclimated and learning the ropes of your organization are very strong and can help retain those employees who might be on the fence about staying.

8. Provide work-life balance.Many young employees are used to sleeping late but working nights and weekends with their laptops. Provide a work environment where employees can adjust their work hours to meet their personal needs and desires. Become known as an organization that provides work hour flexibility.

9. Provide continuous feedback. Millennials crave constant feedback but supervisors typically don't do a good job at this. According to our ongoing proprietary research, only 46 percent of employees receive frequent and ongoing feedback about their job performance throughout the year. Don't make Millennials wait for their annual performance review before providing them with feedback. Let them know how they are doing on a daily basis.

10. Become a learning organization. Millennials want to keep learning. Share your knowledge and provide opportunities for their personal growth.Bring in outside speakers. Create individual development plans for each employee. Train your supervisors how to develop young employees and emphasize how important it is for them to do so.

CONCLUSION
If you are having trouble keeping younger employees and continue to use the same methods to attract, motivate, and retain them, you will surely fail. Your organization will become a revolving door and your profits will suffer. MW