05/24/2016

HR Panel: Millennials in the Workforce

Millennials, called the most disruptive generation in history, was the subject of a panel of human resource executives led by moderator Jack Milligan, Editor-In-Chief at Bank Director, at the AFT Spring Summit at Orlando, Fla.

The panel, consisting of Nathan Baumeister, Chief People Officer (aka Chief Patch Officer) at Kasasa, Sean Gordy HR Director at FIS, and Daniel Miller, Director of Talent Acquisitions, CSI, described the impact of millennials on the workforce.

The Census Bureau projected the millennial population, which totaled 74.8 million in 2014, would reach more than 75.3 million in 2015. If correct, that means they already outnumber the Baby Boomers – the next largest generation.

Having already transformed the retail, social media and technology sectors, millennials have also put pressure on financial institutions to change because they expect to bank on their terms.

So what do the generational differences mean for the financial technology business?

“Generalizations are helpful but in the end, when you are leading people you are leading people as individuals, all millennials are not created equal, all Baby Boomers are not created equal,” Baumeister pointed out. “The key is that your leaders and your managers know the people they are responsible for individually so you can manage them individually.”

There are also misconceptions about millennials. “One we hear all the time is that they don’t work as hard as previous generations,” Gordy explained. That is not accurate. “They are going to get the job done but it may not be in an 8-5 standard schedule that some people are used to.”

Another fallacy is that some of the things millennials want do not apply to previous generations. Such as flexible work schedules. “Guess what? There are a whole lot of people that want flexible work schedules, so they are not just millennials,” Baumeister said. The difference is that previous generations did not have expectations of getting those types of things from a company.

Miller noted what he sees in recruiting and talking to millennials is that they want to see the end before getting to the beginning. “That leads to misconceptions.”

Does attracting new talent mean doing things differently from previous generations? “The gap between millennials and Baby Boomers and Gen Xers is shrinking,” Miller said.

Baumeister added that either current employees, referrals from current employees or returning former employees, filled 55% of open positions last year at Kasasa. “The best way to recruit is to make that number higher.” Because it is less expensive, the probability of a fit culturally is better, and it is less expensive.