Here Come the Millennials

Embracing millennials’ ability to multitask will be essential as companies fight for survival in the war for talent. The National Commission for Employment Policy estimates that the worker shortage will grow to 5.3 million by 2010 and to 14 million by 2020.

Trait 4 – Go Team Go!

By high school graduation, most millennials have had classes in how to negotiate, resolve conflict, and build teams. In college classes, they’ve been more likely to receive group assignments than their predecessors were. Millennials believe that there is safety and comfort in numbers. We now have a generation that likes to move in packs, think in packs, and even work in packs.

The Clash: It wasn’t too long ago when generation Xers were the new kids on the block, and they made it clear from day one that they wanted to work at their own pace and in their own space. So millennials’ collaborative approach can seem exhausting—and downright annoying—to independent Xers. Where boomers and generation Xers want an office with a door, millennials want a work space with no walls.

The Click: Safco Products, an office furniture and products company based in New Hope, considered the millennials in its office redesign. Safco removed all but a few offices and instead created work pods, or “bullpens,” where four to five employees share a larger workspace.

“At first we had some resistance, especially from other generations who felt they had worked hard to earn their door,” says Pam Lafontaine, Safco’s director of marketing. But managers soon noticed that this new office setting improved the workplace. “Everyone feels more connected and in touch with what is going on, and the result is that we feel more like a cohesive team,” Lafontaine says.

Safco adapted what it learned from the redesign into its products. “Our work in designing office solutions, such as mobile filing and storage products that can be set up and reconfigured on a whim, not only encourages more collaboration, flexibility, and teamwork, but they have become our most popular line of products,” Lafontaine says.

When Medtronic broke ground on a new facility in Mounds View in late 2005, it had the millennials in mind. “We knew this next generation wanted more collaborative workspace, so we are designing it to be as flexible as possible to accommodate both project teams and functional teams,” says Jim Driessen, a facility manager at Medtronic. “We have even included what we call clubhouses, where work groups create a space to work on a project for as long as it takes. When the project is complete, so is the workspace.”

Millennials aren’t the only ones who benefit from these office-space trends. After all, if you ask most successful CEOs their secret, they will tell you that it takes a good team. Ask them what gets in the way of creating that team, and they will say personal motives, competitiveness, and internal politics. Millennials’ push to collaborate breaks down these barriers.