CHAPTER 5
It’s Not Disloyal, It’s Seeking Purpose
Show me disloyalty and I’ll show you detachment.
—Anonymous
One of the most notorious claims about millennials is their willingness to job-hop. For the last 10 years, we have been bombarded with statistics such as millennials will hold 10 jobs by the age of 32 and six careers throughout their lifetime. Looking at these statistics, it seems easy to conclude that millennials as a generation are disloyal to companies when previous generations were committed to spending a lifetime at the same job.
Yet, what is loyalty? Loyalty is typically defined as having a sense of duty, devotion, or strong support for an individual, cause, family, faith, or broader group. But loyalty is not given for nothing in return. Loyalty is based on a two-way relationship where there is an alignment of belief. Loyalty should not be confused with servitude.
Despite the perception of millennials as job-hoppers, many people can identify with them regardless of generation. They recognize that the Great Recession has created a job climate that doesn’t enable retention. Also, many people started out their careers believing it would be a linear path, but found that their path had many twists and turns along the way. I’ve met several such individuals: a person who, in a 30-year-long career, started in pattern making, went to chiropractic school, and finally ended in a sales career; a long-time lawyer who became an entrepreneur running a canned food cooking store; an interior designer who became a director of education; and many more. There are many who believe job-hopping is the best way to grow salary and career. There also many who were able to spend 30 years at the same company.
If disloyalty causes detachment, inspiration and connection cause loyalty. As we will see in this chapter, the road to loyalty is to give people cause to be loyal, to give them something to believe in. Furthermore, we will see that disloyalty is not a millennial phenomenon but a symptom of corporate instability and is something all generations can agree on.
One Coin, Two Sides Model: Disloyal or Seeking Purpose?
For this particular stereotype, the observable behavior is that millennials leave companies within three years, if not less. From a traditional perspective, this can be perceived as disloyal. From a modern, top talent perspective, this is a side effect of the global recession and is a call to action for corporations to be held to higher standards and earn back employee loyalty that they are no longer entitled to. These higher standards involve cultivating a strong foundation in values and mission that highlights the impact the company is making on the world, and how each employee contributes to that impact. Table 5.1 summarizes the observable behavior, the two sides, and the supporting beliefs.
Exploring the Traditional Interpretation: Disloyal
From the traditional perspective, people often believe that millennials are primed for immediacy and when they don’t get what they want, they leave. However, just like in the other chapters, there is more to the story.
Most people in previous generations, especially when working for large corporations, expected to work at a single company for 30 to 40 years (and expectations were relatively fulfilled in comparison to today).
Table 5.1 One Coin, Two Sides model for disloyalty vs. seeking purpose interpretations of modern behavior.
One Coin: One Observable Behavior Questioning or challenging people equally, regardless of tenure or level. |
|
|---|---|
Side 1: Traditional Interpretation Finding a new job on average of every three years. |
Side 2: Top Talent, Millennial-Based Modern Interpretation Seeking purpose; compelled to have an impact |
Supporting Beliefs: › It’s riskier to leave an unstable company than to stay around and get a paycheck as long as possible. › It should be possible to stay at a company for 30 years. Reality has changed and that is scary! But I still sometimes act as though continued employment is fairly certain. › I’d like to make a difference through my work. But I’ve been around long enough to know that some companies facilitate giving back and some don’t. If I really want to give back, I can always volunteer or do something meaningful outside of work. › This new generation is primed for immediacy. If they aren’t immediately given a promotion or a raise, they want to leave. They don’t understand that it takes time to develop your career. › The company needs to come first, the individual second. Don’t make your success more important than the team’s. |
Supporting Beliefs: › Companies aren’t entitled to my loyalty after everything they have done to employees who stayed with them 30–40 years in the past. I have to be careful about what company I choose to stay at for a long time—and even then, I can’t expect that there won’t be layoffs. › I want to work for a company that proves it cares about its employees, the surrounding community, and the world at large. I have to look out for me and what’s best for me is to gain as many transferable skills as possible, and make as big of an impact as possible while the company is still interested in keeping me. › We are facing huge, global problems today. I have seen individuals as well as organizations have a huge impact on addressing them. I want to be a part of something long term that is making a difference. |
Source: Invati Consulting
If one so desired, it was possible and probable to stay at a company long term. Regardless of generation, most people tend to agree that this is no longer the case. In my research, one thing generations can agree on is that companies, being profit-focused, have lost their way when it comes to earning the loyalty employees gave them in the past. According to the 2014 Workforce 2020 report, published by SuccessFactors, one of the top three concerns of employees globally is that their position will change or become obsolete. In the US, one out of every four employees share this concern.1
Yet older generations often still can’t understand why a millennial wouldn’t wait until the actual day comes when they lose their job. Older generations experienced a time of greater job security and have a greater tendency to assume the job will be there (or at least, not to leave before they let you go!). As mentioned in chapter 3, millennials are well aware that there is more than one option for earning an income today. Modern talent doesn’t share the belief that working for a paycheck is a good enough reason to stay at a company.
Another reason relates to life stage and responsibilities. Older generations are reaching life stages and situations, such as supporting and funding education for a growing family (gen X and young boomers) and reestablishing retirement funds post-recession (late boomers), that make leaving a job high risk. These situations promote staying with the job, no matter how bad, as long as possible. In contrast, millennials globally have delayed marriage and don’t necessarily feel the pressure to work just for the paycheck. They are at the beginning of their lifelong career journey. They are looking for ways to reduce their dependency on corporate jobs to provide for them. It is actually seen as a greater risk to stay with a company that isn’t doing well—you may risk becoming obsolete yourself from a skill perspective or miss out on growing a foundation for the next job.
Many generational studies highlight the value of compartmentalizing work from other parts of life for older generations. If they can’t pursue value-based work at their job, they can pursue it outside of work. For example, my mother is an accountant and has spent spare time volunteering to help low-income individuals complete their tax returns. From a traditional mindset, a corporation’s first job is to produce profits and a distant second (or third or fourth . . .) is to contribute back to society. What other beliefs and societal norms do you think influenced the perception that millennials are disloyal?
Exploring the Modern Interpretation: Seeking Purpose
What creates loyalty for modern talent if not the paycheck? Recall, based on its definition, that loyalty is created by providing something to believe in. Specifically, modern talent is inspired and attracted by doing social good.
After witnessing the impact of the Great Recession and corporate irresponsibility on their parents (facilitated globally by digital transparency and more open parenting styles), millennials have developed high selectivity when it comes to staying at a company long term. As we have discussed, it is 100 percent seen as a choice and a two-way street, where the companies must earn loyalty of employees. Millennials know that there are compensation and benefits associated with working a full-time job. However, forgoing a traditional job seems less risky since they also know about the many people who have worked from home, pieced together a freelance career, or earned income online successfully.
Millennials have gained insight into global challenges from a young age and appreciate an increased capability to make a difference through grassroots initiatives because of the advent of digital technology. Consider the opportunities to contribute to causes through sites like Kiva and Facebook. We are also well aware that global challenges such as climate change will only be solved if large organizations, governments, and universities collaborate together. According to a 2014 report on millennials and social responsibility by Deloitte, more than 80 percent of millennials believe businesses can help solve the biggest challenges they see today, including income inequality, climate change, and resource scarcity.2 According to Millennial Impact, an organization devoted to studying millennials and their relationship to social good, corporate social responsibility and related initiatives are the third biggest factor when making the decision to accept a job.3 When the company’s cause-related work is talked about during the interview process, 55 percent of millennials were influenced by the knowledge when accepting a job.4 Top talent often has a strong belief in working for organizations that mirror their own sense of purpose and desire for social good. These organizations appear to be few and far between.
Modern talent believes that a company that cares about the surrounding community is more likely to care about their employees. Therefore, a reason to believe in and inspire loyalty emerges. Does holding organizations to higher standards of social good hinder or help profits? What do effective corporate social responsibility programs look like from a modern lens?
Leveraging Millennial Values to Build a Modern Organization
One of the key ways organizations are focused on “solving the revolving door,” especially regarding millennials, is by assuming they can’t retain employees and instead leveraging them while they are there. One of the talent development executives I spoke to mentioned that they are revising their career-path model to allow for assignments that are one or two years in length instead of their standard three to five. Ironically, I’ve found this may reduce engagement and actually increase turnover because it reinforces the perception that the company doesn’t have room for the employee longer term. The only way to solve this is to strive to become a company that people want to work for. In addition to the interventions discussed in previous chapters, another key intervention is to build a modern corporate social responsibility culture, one that is more than financial contributions and fund-raisers. It’s about creating corporate social responsibility that resonates with modern talent (and consumers) based on our One Coin, Two Sides model.
Similar to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for individuals, I propose that there is a perceived hierarchy of needs for businesses to fulfill. In the first stage, we expect businesses to have a viable idea and make profit on a small scale. The goal is survival, analogous to a person’s physiological and security needs. In the next stage, businesses need to scale up and make profit on a large scale, becoming a part of the fabric of society as an essential product or service. This is analogous to the individual stage of love and belonging. The next stage, then, is to start moving beyond profit and into social impact and mission. Similarly, in an individual, the last stages are esteem and self-actualization. The expectation is that companies that have been around for a long time or are extremely successful should be able to maintain the status quo while expanding more influence and contribution to social good.
Especially for today’s big Fortune 500 businesses, Wall Street pressures of high growth may be enabled by investing in social responsibility initiatives. As corporations meet their base needs of profit, both talent and consumers expect them to evolve to meet metrics of social good. Social responsibility increases brand awareness, attracts talent, decreases turnover, and ultimately sustains the communities that businesses reside in. Imagine the ghost towns of the mining industry or the towns that aren’t listed on the top 10 places millennials want to live. We can see what happens when a business stops investing in their surrounding community. Many corporations today tend to simply move to another community that someone else has invested in, but this certainly comes at a cost.
Loyalty is earned when companies show that they truly care: care about their employees, care about society, and care about the environment. Knowing that highly established companies are empowered to make positive impacts, but often choose not to, inspires disloyalty. Instead, working for a company that focuses on meaningful impact, from the executive level down to the frontline employee, is the new expectation. If you want millennials (and just about anyone else, really!) to be motivated and loyal, organizations need to value positive impact in two ways—at the organizational level and in the day-to-day work of the employee. On an organizational level, having a strong social responsibility mission is imperative to millennials. Good social responsibility programs have three key characteristics:
1. Customizable employee involvement
2. Genuine authenticity to do good
3. Are not limited to financial contributions
From an individual level, having a work plan that clearly ties to the business mission and vision is important. Work plans should be meaningful and every employee should be able to articulate how their role contributes to the business. If the mission and vision have been articulated clearly to encompass the business’s benefit to society, employees inherently will understand the connection of their work to social good.
Tales from the Trenches
Let’s explore several case studies of organizations that galvanize support and loyalty through social good.
Case Study 5.1
Turning Around Turnover Through a Cultural Movement
The retail industry has one of the largest turnover challenges of any industry. Yet TCC, one of the largest Verizon Premium retailers, has a turnover rate of 45 percent—significantly less than the industry average of 66 to 80 percent for part-time employees. Although not by design, TCC attributes their decreased turnover to their program “The Culture of Good,” initially spearheaded by Ryan McCarty and today a cultural movement across the workforce. In addition to decreased turnover, TCC has enjoyed increased engagement. Ninety percent of employees between the ages of 25 and 35 report that the Culture of Good gives them a sense of fulfillment at work. The movement was started when Scott Moorehead, CEO of TCC, created a single role for corporate social responsibility and hired full-time pastor Ryan McCarty to lead it.
The Culture of Good is based on a philosophy of using moments to build a movement. Here are some of the moments the program championed and the elements that made them successful:
Easily scalable. When designed by one man with no staff, an initiative must be simple and easily scalable. McCarty’s prior nonprofit experience taught him to start small, scale big, and create a cadence of moments to build a movement. When the program launched in 2013, McCarty started by distributing 60,000 backpacks filled with school supplies to 1,600 employees in 28 states. To build a movement, McCarty went on to build a cadence of similar moments in which, today, 91 percent of stores are involved. Every quarter, TCC has an event, with themes like Teachers Rock Supply Giveaway, Heal the World, Stop Hunger, and the original Backpack Giveaway.
Authentic intention. The Culture of Good wasn’t designed to improve profit, decrease turnover, or increase engagement; its purpose was just to do good. It is based on authentic giving that every employee and the community can participate in. TCC is in the service industry, not just retail, with stores located in local communities across 42 states. TCC sees serving those communities as an integral part of serving their customers and employees and, therefore, is related to their core business and profits. The unintentional increased brand awareness worked: 68 percent of their employees report that their store has gained new customers because of the Culture of Good.
Employee choice and autonomy. To keep the events scalable, some things are held consistent across stores: theme, calendar date, and budget. But every store has flexibility in determining the details of the localized parties for the events. Employees are given 16 hours paid time off every year to volunteer, whether that volunteer time is during or off work hours. Employees are also free to contribute ideas to grow the effort like adding recycling, which was suggested by new hires. Stores can also choose local charities that they would like to raise donations for, which TCC matches throughout the year.
Essential to employee development and therefore, company culture. Over time, McCarty ensured that the Culture of Good went beyond the events into becoming a sustainable part of the company culture by making it an essential part of each employee’s role. Based off a yearlong pilot group of “ambassadors,” today, performance evaluations for each employee are based 50 percent on direct job performance and 50 percent on culture. As a result of their participation, employees grow their internal network, have greater visibility from a career perspective, and learn valuable transferable skills.
By engaging McCarty to create an authentic cultural movement, CEO Moorehead freed his company from solely focusing on numbers to harnessing the power of intangibles—and found amazing results. The success has been so positive that McCarty has enrolled other companies in the effort. The backpacks this year number 135,000 and another company has been so inspired by TCC’s work, they are partnering to give an additional 100,000 backpacks. As a result of interest from other companies, TCC has packaged what they have done to help other companies build movements of their own that connect with their employees, customers, and community. The Culture of Good is now an operating system that helps companies discover or rediscover their cause.
The example of TCC highlights how small changes, such as creating a single role and empowering employees, can result in large movements. TCC’s approach was to leverage the grassroots desire to do good to create a culture that spreads to every employee, beyond financial contribution. Lower turnover, increased engagement, identification of high-potential talent, and increased customer acquisition are only a few of the benefits to TCC. The company has earned the loyalty of the employees, the customers, and the community at large through their work.
Case Study 5.2
NEWaukee—Millennials Influencing Corporations to Invest in Community: A Grassroots Approach to Inspiring Two-Way Loyalty
Angela Damiani is the 30-year-old cofounder of NEWaukee, a social architecture firm and one of the most unique organizations I’ve found: it turns the idea of corporate loyalty on its head. Damiani, choosing to move to Wisconsin as a young adult, saw many of her peers leaving the state for more modern, urban centers. She saw corporations leave as well, unwilling to invest in creating a thriving community. Damiani sought to change the paradigm and picked up the reins corporations in the area had left behind. Damiani, her business partner Jeremy Fojut, and the rest of the NEWaukee team have created a diverse range of events, education, and community by enrolling millennials and local businesses to participate. Ultimately, these events help to attract and retain talent in Wisconsin. Each event or project is unique based on the community’s needs and existing infrastructure. Here’s a snapshot of some of NEWaukee’s initiatives:
West Wisconsin Avenue revitalization. In the launch city, Milwaukee, like many cities, there was an abandoned retail corridor with shuttered buildings, but cheap rent. NEWaukee’s team realized that many city residents had misperceptions about safety and so they created an event called the Night Market to revitalize the area. Local businesses were dubious, but NEWaukee was able to get 100 artists to create an open-air, free marketplace–style event with 40,000 in attendance the first year. Last year, vendors sold over half a million dollars’ worth of goods. As a direct result of this event, the area is becoming revitalized, exemplified by the repurposing of an old urban mall nearby. The event helped attract a new owner for the property and they are reapplying lessons learned from the Night Market to develop an urban market, with input from NEWaukee on the design.
Penrod. As a new start-up company to the Wisconsin area, Penrod was interested in recruiting talent. NEWaukee helped them sponsor nighttime music events where Penrod’s existing 10 employees could become a part of the community. By sponsoring regular events, they now have 50 employees and recently won an award for the best place in Wisconsin for young professionals to work. This is one of the clearest examples of a company investing in the community and getting a return, or return on community (ROC) as NEWaukee calls it.
YPWeek. The original event that started it all at NEWaukee is an annual event for young professionals to connect with corporate and nonprofit leaders, network with each other, and experience their community. The inaugural event took place in Milwaukee and has expanded to 150 events in 15 cities across Wisconsin with an astounding attendance of 12,000 young professionals. The week showcases events that highlight unique parts of the community, organically creating reasons for people to stay as well as providing a lot of opportunity for friendship making.
Damiani’s message to corporate is this: “The world is un-siloed today. Why do we pretend that the corporation and the community and the government are all silos? We can all win by investing in our local communities. You can find more talent locally; the talent will stay in the community because they like it; and spend their dollars growing company profits and the economy. Our hope is to help people look critically at the place they live, to see its potential, and to shape it as a place that everyone wants to be a part of.” NEWaukee, although consisting of over 200,000 subscribers, still lacks significant corporate investment. Damiani finds that corporations tend to see investing in community as a part of external relations instead of as core to their profitability. Corporations in Wisconsin, if they choose, could use the existing infrastructure NEWaukee has built and shortcut their path to gaining employee loyalty.
Overall, NEWaukee is a powerful model of how to increase employee engagement and retention by investing in creating thriving communities, whether that investment is made by companies, government, or the people themselves.
These examples span a variety of industries and paint a picture of the loyalty created through pursuing social good as a corporate value. Whether you are in the retail sector with consistently high turnover or fast food or a local community, there are a wide variety of initiatives to consider.
Summary: From Disloyalty to Recapturing Organizational Purpose
In this chapter, through the One Coin, Two Sides model, we learned that millennials’ relationship to a company has changed because companies themselves have changed. While we would like to be able to rely on companies as in past times, people from all generations agree that this is an unrealistic expectation. Employees in general feel that companies are no longer entitled to loyalty, and those that show they care about social good earn back loyalty more successfully than those that don’t. In previous chapters, we explored how the emergence of digital technology has influenced new expectations for how, when, and what we work on, as well as what enables our most effective work. In this chapter, we furthered this discussion by exploring how digital technology provides further transparency into corporate actions and global events, as well as the tools to effect social good.
In order for organizations to create loyalty, we introduced the concept of a hierarchy of needs for businesses where once a business has reached a point of sustained survival and brand recognition, the next step is to pursue a strategy of giving back. We then discussed two ways in which an organization can create effective social responsibility. One is to nurture a corporate social responsibility culture, which includes a mission that discusses the impact of the business on society and ways for employees to contribute beyond financial means to the initiative. The second is to have work plans that clearly connect to the business mission.
Employees are trying to hold corporations to higher standards. While the traditional belief is that investments in social good require money and time away from work, the case studies we explored show how much can be done with little. In the example of TCC, one man created a movement in which new customers have been gained and brand recognition has improved. The example of NEWaukee shows how investing in creating thriving communities retains and engages talent. Finally, the example of Yum! Brands shows how the same elements can be used in a global company. These case studies represent only a small estimation of the success that can be gained for companies, employees, and communities by investing in social good.
How Modern Is Your Culture?
How well do you think your organization is meeting modern talent needs? Read each statement and place an X in the appropriate column, then sum up your score. We have stated “my company” for the focus of each statement, but feel free to replace with “my immediate work group” or another community if it serves your purpose better. The assessment can also be found online at themillennialmyth.com/resources, where you can compare your answers with other readers.
If the majority of your X’s fall in the strongly disagree or disagree columns, your organization is leaning toward a traditional perspective that is at risk of disengaging modern talent. You may want to see where you can make some changes through reviewing portions of this chapter, trying the 10-Minute Champion ideas below, investigating our online resources, or reaching out to us for further help.
10-Minute Champion
What can you do to shift your organization toward a modern culture? Consider championing the following ideas in your work group, intended to take no more than 10 minutes each.
Inspire yourself. Consider one way in which the work your company does benefits society. Spend a moment considering how your work ties into the company’s goals. Make a note of it and use it as a reminder if you need to feel inspired in the future.
Inspire others. Consider other ways you can highlight how your company has a positive impact, such as changing your e-mail signature to your company’s mission or values statement or providing detail in your LinkedIn profile. Share your thoughts at the next group meeting or on your internal social network.
Learn your colleague’s community ties. Ask a colleague, “What is one way our local community impacts you in a positive way?” The answer could uncover a colleague’s formal cause work, participation in a local organization, or something as simple as going to a weekly farmer’s market and supporting local businesses. You may learn something that could be a great place to sponsor events, like TCC’s work in local communities. Or simply, you may have demonstrated that you value getting to know a colleague better.
Create your own idea. Feel free to create your own idea to building loyalty through demonstrating an authentic desire for helping social good and community.
Add your idea and view others’ ideas on the 10-Minute Champion at themillennialmyth.com/resources.