Stop Worrying about "Job-Hopping" Employees and Continue to Invest in Their Career Development

We know millennials are eager to advance in their careers. And 80 percent of the millennials reported they were willing to put in a great deal of effort beyond what's normally expected to help their organizations succeed. Those are not the kind of employees an organization wants to let go.
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

When it comes to work, are millennials truly that different than previous generations? KPMG recently commissioned a Boston College Center for Work and Family study of more than 1,000 millennials to understand if popular "myths" about Gen X were true.

We were most surprised to find that the survey results dispelled the myth that millennials are interested in "job-hopping" - the majority of young adults surveyed (60 percent) said they plan to stay at their jobs for some time. And, at a rate of 2-1, they said staying with their employers was their preferred strategy to advancement over leaving their organizations.

We know millennials are eager to advance in their careers. And 80 percent of the millennials reported they were willing to put in a great deal of effort beyond what's normally expected to help their organizations succeed. Those are not the kind of employees an organization wants to let go.

In today's battle for top talent, proactively engaging with millennial employees about their individual career paths can help increase retention and make it clear that advancement within the organization is attainable. Here are several key action steps:

•Provide career navigation skills. Setting goals, building networks, finding mentors, and seeking leadership opportunities are top things millennials want their employers to help with. Offering career management workshops and career coaching can help demystify the processes for advancement within an organization.

•Encourage managers to check-in with employees regularly to ensure that the individual is meeting his or her career goals. The benefit of providing informal mentoring and ad hoc career advice must be stressed. The one-on-one guidance, training and mentoring provided by a manger can make the difference between an employee leaving or staying with an organization.

•Whenever possible, look to align an individual's personal passions with their work. This can help employees feel challenged and supported in working toward their career aspirations.

It's up to employers to foster their millennial talent or risk losing them to the competition. Truly successful employers will develop their younger employees effectively and retain them, help them advance, and look to them to lead their organizations into the future.

Close

What's Hot