Although more ambitious and demanding than older employees, millennial workers tend to put the companies they work for behind other priorities. As an example, friends, online communities, and personal wants and needs have become more important than loyalty to employers – an issue that has generated serious dilemmas for many organizations over the past few years.
However, these tech whiz kids are slowly replacing previous hard-working generations, whether we like it or not, and they hold the future of ERP in their hands. Since organizations must hire more and more millennial workers, finding a way to understand, address, and solve new challenges relating to employee attraction and retention is critical to business success.
Attracting and Retaining Millennial Talent
Basic concepts of psychology tell us that millennials want the same thing as any other worker, namely a great place to work. Looking through their eyes, a great work environment means access to information, constant communication, instant messaging, superior file sharing, and last, but not least, technology innovation to efficiently address new challenges and take tech skills to the next level. While offering the new generation of workers all these may be difficult, it’s not impossible.
In fact, new ERP solutions not only provide all these, they also enable employees to complete tasks on-the-go, collaborate with people across different geographies, make relevant decisions quickly, and coordinate teams and projects easier than ever before. Here is how ERP makes all these possible.
- Communication. As different people work on a project, efficient communication is essential to ensure that information reaches relevant parties on time. Conversely, poor communication between departments leads to negative outcomes, which usually result in missed opportunities and financial losses. ERP improves communication between departments, unifying all business functions into one software solution that collects, processes, and makes data available in real-time.
- Instant Messaging. Using instant messaging since they’ve been born – almost natively, we could say – millennials are more aware of the power of instant messaging than older employees could ever be. An ERP solution featuring instant messaging capabilities can help you customize orders and workflows, and address current issues on the spot, which will streamline your entire business activity.
- Bring-Your-Own-Device. Gen Y’ers love to bring their own devices to work mainly because it gives them more flexibility. This is also beneficial to your organization. Synchronizing employees' devices with your ERP system will allow them to complete job tasks on-the-go, bringing you more business.
- File Sharing. Without file sharing, collaboration is very difficult, often requiring employees to get together in person to work on projects. Luckily, ERP systems facilitating file sharing change the way organizations operate, making collaboration on documents more streamlined without compromising the safety of sensitive information. A notable aspect is that millennials know how to use a variety of IT systems and how to convert and transfer files in different formats. All these allow them to work on the same documents remotely, make changes in real-time, and then share the most recent document versions with each other.
You’ll probably never see a millennial worker wearing a stiff white collar and polished cufflinks. However, most of these workers are creative and innovative, while having more information in their heads than any of your current employees. Moreover, they not only possess all the skills necessary to get data at their fingertips to better do their jobs, but they are also able to communicate with others on a global scale.
It's true that most of them have high expectations; however, it's also true that they promise to become a high-performing workforce ready to offer services that exceed expectations. And since customer service is becoming increasingly important, hiring employees capable to excel in everything they do is critical to secure the future of your business. So should you go the extra mile and implement an ERP system that can help you attract and retain millennials? What do you think?