Fulfillment equals productivity for millennials at work

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The world of work does not get a free pass from millennials who seek meaning and importance in everything they do. For them (the generation born in the two decades before, or immediately after, 2000), the workplace must ideally reflect socially worthwhile goals because their sense of “engagement” is dependent on their feeling that they are maximizing their potential.

This cohort (huge in numbers because they are the offspring of the baby boomers) has been taught to believe that their ambition to change the world for the better is a meaningful aspiration and that they have a responsibility to pursue these objectives.

This may be due to an idealism that has always been associated with youth, but more likely owes a great deal to the fact that social media has altered the way young people interact, learn, get the news, express and share ideas. Coming of age in an era of unprecedented economic well-being has also increased the choices available.

Employers ignore this need at their peril. If millennials find themselves in assignments that merely make use of their technical skills but are boring, repetitive, or simply associated with improving the bottom line of an enterprise whose profile they don’t admire, this will show up in lower energy and productivity, diminished commitment and ultimately sub-optimal economic performance.

Multiplied over the breadth of the economy, disengaged employees are a drag on the output of the entire nation.

Not every company can be in a business whose product or service is seen as improving society, helping the disadvantaged or encouraging development in impoverished parts of the world. But a fossil fuel producing company, for example, can encourage research into more sustainable alternatives, maintain an admirable program of corporate social responsibility or adopt a vision that instills pride in the role the company plays to make the brand more meaningful.

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