Three Things You Don’t Normally Do To Engage Your Millennial Subordinates

by Venchito Tampon | Last Updated on July 18, 2017

This post won’t discuss managing millennials whom you think aren’t productive at all (that’s for another post).

Today, we’ll talk about how you can manage productive millennials that have yet to maximize their full potentials to become ultra-productive professionals.

1. Get them to buy-in by giving a clear direction

The most difficult part of being a manager is not managing tasks, but getting millennials to buy-in to what your team/company does.

Here are some ways to clarify to your subordinate millennial about his work:

• Does he really understand his work? The simple trick is here is to ask him the impact of his work to the overall operations of the department or, if it’s a startup, to the whole company.
• Are the expectations crystal clear? Your direct reports should be clear on what you need from him on a daily/weekly/monthly basis Otherwise, you can expect a below-par performance.
• Is the task something he can do? The longer and closer you work with him, the better you will know him and his capabilities. This is why relationship building is important.
• Ask him what he is enthusiastic about at work. What is he most excited about doing, whether he’s part of finishing the task or not?
• Let him know how his current and past work had added value to your team or your company. It’s a confidence booster and adds motivation.

These things can help get your millennial subordinates to buy-in at work.

2. Let them collaborate

Millennials love collaboration.

If your company has hired the right person for the job, a teamwork atmosphere should happen.

If you see some difficulties in handling some tasks at work, peer learning is a good approach. You can pair him up with someone else and have them learn with each other. As he observes how a task is executed differently and with more efficiency, he’d be able to adapt it to his own job as well.

Same task, better approach.

3. Use technology to support their needs

Millennials are labeled as lazy people.

Let’s stop that thinking as it only de-motivates people at your bottom line.

Some millennials aren’t lazy; they’re just distracted with their mobile devices.  They can easily conduct multiple conversations at once across many different online platforms. It’s easy for them to get distracted.

However, that shouldn’t be a hindrance to doing their jobs well.

You can use the right technology to attend to their needs on certain tasks. If they’re struggling with priorities, let them use an app to manage projects or give them a to-do-lists with schedules.

Let them use a chat support or team collaboration tools like Trello for easy communication – in that way; they’ll use technology for work productivity (just make sure you monitor them occasionally).

YOUR TURN

How do you manage millennials to be ultra productive at work?

Leave a quick comment below.

I’ll be around today to reply to comments and answer questions.

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