I live in a house full of millennials, three of whom are having their first skirmishes with working life. Every day I study them, marvelling at how little their early experiences resemble my own. Sometimes I think it is because they are different. Sometimes because the world is different. I don’t know the right answer — but at least I know the wrong one when I see it.
Last week I got an email with the subject line “attracting millennials” from the dean of Columbia’s School of Professional Studies. He has been pondering the question of why so many of the brightest twentysomethings quit their fancy jobs, and has come up with a three-pronged strategy to help companies hang on to them. It goes like this: motivate through learning, market your benefit, invest in HR.
I stared at these puny bullet points and wondered if this man had ever met a millennial. That evening I asked my focus group around the dinner table if they agreed that the answer to mass disenchantment was more HR and training. Much derision followed.