How does your business approach 20-somethings? They’re a tough group of employees to engage. Managing expectations across generational divides is challenging – not only do college students and recent grads move a little faster than the typical pace of a corporation (it’s ok to admit it), the environment they’re used to in school is much different than the environment they’ll find at the office. At work, they’ll still get performance feedback; but not every project they complete is graded and evaluated in detail.
Young professionals are eager to please and excited to be able to prove they have what it takes – but often what it takes is patience – patience to learn the company culture, to network with other employees, to find their footing in an unfamiliar setting. All new employees need help learning the culture and pace of your company so that they can succeed. Academic accomplishment doesn’t translate exactly into corporate success – it takes time to learn that new language.
At U.S. Bank, we offer employees our Development Network to help them push their social skills and project management ability into top gear. Now, the program isn’t aimed specifically at young professionals (though we’re creating a similar, but separate organization for that demographic). In our Development Network, employees at all levels of their careers can connect with each other, plan events that benefit their colleagues, their families and their communities, and grow their careers by taking advantage of opportunities above and beyond their day-to-day desk or sales jobs. Taking employees out of their routine "work life" and allowing them to leverage their talents and interests helps engage them with the company on a deeper level. It may be the missing extracurricular that employees fresh-out-of-college need to feel challenged.
Another way to engage young professionals is to offer opportunities to give back to the community. Employees who grew up in the 90s and beyond remember being told they could do anything they wanted when they grew up – well, imagine wanting to become a zookeeper and landing instead at a bank as a part-time teller. Banking isn’t going to solve your need for saving animals, but the bank’s relationship with the Cincinnati Zoo might provide some unique opportunities for giving back. Or, say you’re a 20-something wealth management specialist but when you go home from work, you draw and paint. Maybe you’d like to sit on an arts board, or chair the U.S. Bank ArtsWave campaign next year. What about the students who went through elementary school longing to be the teacher? There’s a connection for those aspiring educators, too – through Adopt-A-Class, the United Way’s literacy efforts, or the Teach a Child to Save program, just to name a few of the educational outreach programs many of the corporations in this city, including U.S. Bank, actively support.
When you’re thinking about ways to engage new employees, remember that no matter where you are in life now, you were once new to the workforce, fresh out of school, ready for anything and everything. Don’t disappoint our future leaders with nothing but a routine desk job and Excel spreadsheets of numbers to crunch. Engage their passions, spark their curiosity and foster connections for them outside of the office. You’ll be surprised how much they learn, and in turn, how their energy might inspire you.