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Building Trust with Gen Y: Focus on Meaningfulness

By 2025, approximately 75% of the world’s workforce will consist of millennials (Gen Y), according to a study from the BPW Foundation. Companies that survive past 2025 will be those that develop the trust of the millennial workforce, while maintaining trust with previous generations. Companies that disregard the mind-frame and work-style of Gen Y will scare away top talent and consumer dollars.

In 9-blog series over the next few weeks, we will share 9 Gen Y trust-builders & insights into the milennial mind. Here’s #1:

Redesign aspects of your organization in a way that focus on meaningfulness. Millennials yearn for meaning. Without living through a draft or another major hardship, Gen Y desires more than stability and achievement. They want to work in organizations that are genuine to a meaningful mission.

They don’t want to merely provide products and services. Rather, they want to use them as tools to help develop people and society. In addition to a meaningful mission, they want their organization to have a strong environmental, social, and corporate governance strategy (ESG), be known as a leader in corporate responsibility, and give back generously and purposefully to their communities.

If your company doesn’t focus on meaningfulness and give freedom to create new avenues to make a difference, millennials will run the other direction—to your competitor companies. But, by paying attention to the value of meaningfulness, your company will develop trust and retain top young talent.

This article was originally published by David Horsager

Published: December 20, 2013
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David Horsager

David Horsager, MA, CSP, is a business strategist, keynote speaker and author of the National Bestseller, The Trust Edge: How Top Leaders Gain Faster Results, Deeper Relationships, and a Stronger Bottom Line. His work has been featured in prominent publications such as Fast Company, Forbes, The Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal, SUCCESS Magazine, and The Washington Post.