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News & Events

A Growing Workforce: How to Recruit and Retain Millennials

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By 2025, millennials are expected to become 75 percent of the workforce. When recruiting new employees, it’s important for contractors to focus on this up-and-coming generation. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when recruiting millennials.

Highlight Long-Term Benefits

When someone is searching for a job, they are likely keeping salary top of mind, and it’s no different for millennials. Millennials grew up during the recession, so their long-term financial well-being is important to them. In fact, 88 percent of millennials say that company stability is a top priority when considering employers.[1]

When discussing compensation with a millennial recruit, consider bringing up any benefits you can offer them that will provide them with financial stability in the long run, like a retirement package or a profit-sharing program.

Provide Professional Development and Opportunities for Growth

While financial stability is important, millennials are also looking for a sense of purpose beyond compensation; they value opportunities for professional development and advancement. More than half of millennials consider growth opportunities to be the most attractive job perk.

Show interest in your recruits’ career aspirations. Do they want to someday be a site supervisor or project manager? What support can you provide to help them achieve their goals? Let them know about any training or professional growth opportunities that you offer. If you don’t have any formal training programs in place, show recruits that they will receive frequent, honest coaching from you and their superiors, which can lead to professional growth.

Millennials prefer to be coached and nurtured rather than just directed. Good coaches work withtheir employees, not above them. Explain the “why” behind your directions and show your employees how doing something a specific way will help achieve success.

Enable a Healthy Work-Life Balance

Millennials view work as only one part of their life, so work-life balance and a healthy work culture are important. Consider what you, as an employer, can offer to provide team members with a great work-life balance. Do you offer maternity and paternity leave? Are hours flexible so employees can take time off to attend parent-teacher conferences or appointments? Do you require overtime or is it optional? Millennials don’t mind hard work, but they do want to know that their employers care about their well-being.

They also want to know what your company’s larger mission is and what their purpose would be on your team. Does your company have a mission statement or core values? Engaged employees are five times less likely to leave their jobs, so give your millennial employees a way to contribute to something larger than their everyday tasks.

Similarly, millennials want to know that they are not just a number to their employers. When recruiting millennials, use individualized email communications, social media interactions and event invitations. Personal touches can go a long way.

Use Technology, Strategically

Millennials grew up in a technological world and are used to being connected to tech at all times. You can use this insight to look for potential employees on social media by posting job openings, upcoming events, project news and industry insights on websites like LinkedIn or Facebook. In fact, 62 percent of millennials reportedly visit a company’s social media sites to look for information about job opportunities.[2]

Millennials, more than any other generation, care about a company’s values and its ability to do good in the world. You can attract more candidates by using social media to offer insights into this part of your company.

Once you have millennials on your crew, empower them to use technology when appropriate for your business. For example, ABC Supply offers ABC Connect, which is an online ordering platform that makes it possible to create estimates and place product orders anytime, anywhere.

Millennials are hard workers, and they are becoming a greater percentage of the workforce. To make sure you position your business as an attractive career option, recruit millennials where they are—online—and highlight your company’s compensation packages, opportunities for professional growth and commitment to work-life balance.

Get more tips on how you can retain people on your crew here. You can also learn more about how to collaborate with a different generation of customers—including millennials—here.

[1] Pinpoint Market Research
[2] 2015 Talent Trends Report


The information provided is for general informational purposes only. All information provided is in good faith, and is not intended as a substitute for obtaining accounting, tax, legal, or financial advice for a professional accountant or lawyer. Any opinions expressed are those of the author. ABC Supply makes no warranties of any kind, express or implied, regarding, the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness of any information provided herein. Any questions regarding the information provided should be addressed to the author.