Millennials Sound Off in Latest Gallup Poll

I participated in a fascinating webinar last week led by Gallup, one of the world’s most respected research-based, global performance-management consulting companies. Gallup shared their latest findings on Millennials and Employee Engagement, which include:

·       93% of Millennials who quit their job last year did so to change their role.
·       29% of Millennials are engaged and 64% of this group have no desire to change jobs.

What does this tell us?  Millennials are not job hopping for the sake of job hopping.  They are job hopping because their current work environment is not offering them opportunities to learn, grow, and be challenged at work.  It also tells us that if more Millennials were engaged, job hopping would be less rampant.

In addition to these statistics, Millennials said they need meaning at work, and want to work for quality managers and senior leaders.  This idealistic group wants to change the world and to know that what they do every day is making a difference.  And as it relates to quality leadership?  They want to be led by excellent leaders, but instead find themselves being led by people who do not hold others accountable.

In sharing this data with you, I hope you have better insights into the minds of this unconstrained group, who will make up a whopping 75% of our workforce by 2025.  It’s clear that what managers and leaders are doing is not cutting it today, so it surely will not make the grade in the future.

When I speak in January at the Mile High Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Conference about Millennials, I will ask the question, “Will leaders wake up to the ‘Reality of Millennials’ or continue to lead organizations the way they always have, disenfranchising the masses?”  Unfortunately, I think I know the answer.  However, I’m hopeful because if any group can serve as a wake-up call for managers and leaders to change, it’s Millennials.  They are sounding the alarm loud and clear.  Have you woken up?