Let’s talk: Is at least a third of your workforce under age 35?

If not, you risk losing out, and big time. Millennials make up 1 in 3 workers in the modern labor force today — and that number is only going to get bigger. By 2025, Millennials will make up nearly 75% of the U.S. workforce.

Why is it important to have Millennials on your team? Not having a diverse mix could be a sign that your workplace culture is becoming stagnant and falling behind the times.

What’s the worst that could happen? The consequences of such a misalignment could be quite severe.

CHICKEN OR THE EGG

It’s clear that the way we work together is changing in organizations across America. Most people think it’s because Millennials showed up and changed the office culture, but that’s not quite right. Yes, Millennials are one of the newest generations of workers, and yes, they’re wired to behave and think differently than their Gen X and Boomer peers.

But Millennials aren’t the only change agents when it comes to workplace behaviors — everyone is. Every day, people of all ages and generations bring the norms of modern culture with them when they show up to do their jobs. As newcomers to the workforce, Millennials are used to forging their own paths and had no frame of reference for traditional office life when they started. In contrast, older generations with their decades of work experience noticed a distinct shift — but didn’t see it as abruptly. That’s why Millennials were likely the first to call out the misalignment.

What’s apparent to everyone no matter their age is that the cultural shifts happening outside the office need to be happening in workplace cultures as well.

Case in point, information is readily available to anyone today — on any topic, at any time, and from any place on the planet with an internet connection. Keeping up with what matters to you is only a click away.

However, in most organizations, information tends to be on a “need to know” basis and is shared from the top down only when the time is deemed “right.” In real life and in offices across the globe, employees are required to source their own information, regardless of whether or not their boss is in a forthcoming mood. That’s the definition of a misalignment between the workplace culture and overall culture.

GET IT TOGETHER, TOP TO BOTTOM

Fixing this problem starts with a commitment from the top. If senior executives think that “because we’ve always done it this way” is an acceptable credo, then their workplace cultures will never evolve.

Those same executives constantly ask themselves, “why would younger applicants rather work for my competitors?”

If this sounds familiar, then it might be time to examine your current workplace culture.

At SIR’s Institute for Tomorrow, we’ve discovered that changing an organization’s culture isn’t about primarily changing the mindsets of employees. Instead, the first focus should be updating the rules and HR policies to match the expectations of workers today. Once these more arbitrary rules are revised — such as letting people wear earbuds at their desks — then the whole workplace environment adjusts quickly to match.

So, if you aren’t winning with Millennial employees at the moment, then maybe you need to take a hard look at your rulebook. If that’s 1980’s dust you see - don’t fret, we’ll be your lemon-scented Pledge.

Ready to get started? Schedule a consultation - we can help put your organization back on track.