How to get millennials to marry your company

Is your firm feeling a bit male, pale and stale? Have millennial hires turned your office into a revolving door, with new faces never staying long enough for you to remember their names? Is the talent pool shrinking, or is the traditional bait just no longer working?

Whatever the causes, failing to attract top talent is one of the top risks consistently identified by firms through VinciWorks Risk Management System. Like an apocalyptic horror novel where the human race ceases to reproduce, the risk of not attracting and retaining top talent is like a ticking clock counting down to demographic disaster. With every retirement party attended and every leaving card signed, another void opens up. It’s hard to know if it can ever be properly filled.

Young people know it’s a competitive market out there, millennials more than any other generation. Under 35’s have had to compete for everything from A-levels to university places to internships and even relationships. If there’s always the chance of something better just waiting on the next swipe on a smartphone, then the face value of long-term commitment plummets.

Traditional models of relationships have been disrupted. People often change jobs and partners a lot quicker than they used to. But it doesn’t mean long-term commitment, whether it’s to a job or a relationship, is dead. Attracting and keeping top talent in the millennial generation and getting them to commit just takes a bit more effort.

Why millennials still choose marriage

So in the age of Tinder, what makes young people commit to a long term relationships of any kind, especially an institution as old as marriage? And what might the lessons be for your firm?

First, it’s still a scary world out there on your own. Millennials know exactly what it feels like to search fruitlessly on dating websites, suffering through endless swipes, unanswered messages and ghosted conversations. However, the sheer ubiquity of dating apps demonstrates the promise of commitment is still a draw, even if it’s hard to pin down.

They know what it’s like to search endlessly for a job and are looking for commitment.

Second, the institution of marriage shows it can change too. Women are no longer legally owned by their husbands. Divorce has become more equitable, and same-sex marriage shows the institution can adapt to progressive values that millennials hold.

They see the employer as flexible and sharing their values.

Third, compromises and sharing the burden can be mutually beneficial. Most millennials don’t even understand the concept of a wife giving up a career, if back then they even had one, to raise the children and run the house. Today, sharing maternity and paternity leave is becoming increasingly common, as is a female breadwinner and evenly distributing household responsibilities. In Japan, where families are still highly conservative, growing numbers of young people are simply saying no to relationships because it doesn’t fit in with their life.

They know that the company will work to accommodate their life goals.

Fourth, millennials are marrying older and have done their homework. Millennials are putting off marriage and family till their late twenties and thirties. It might be the concept hasn’t felt relevant or they’ve had to spend a lot longer on their education and career before thinking about settling down. But when they do marry, millennials tend to bring a lot more life experience than their parents’ generation and come in with eyes wide open.

They aren’t starting out as a teenager, aren’t naive about the world and don’t want to be treated like that.

Fifth, marriage is much more a positive choice because there are other perfectly valid alternative relationship models. Everything from cohabitation to co-parenting to polyamory means marriage is no longer the default option for a fulfilling relationship or having children. There’s a litany of examples out there that don’t really have the negative personal or societal consequences in the way they used to. Millennials have done the cost-benefit analysis and still decided this is for them, but under their terms.

They know there are other options out there, from freelancing to travelling, but have made a positive choice to work for you.

Why millennials will choose to stay with you

Taking the lessons of why millennials commit to marriage, we can develop and adapt them to figure out how to get top talent to commit to your firm.

They know what it’s like to search endlessly for a job and are looking for commitment. The millennial generation went from plodding the streets with CV’s in hand to online applications to swiping through job adverts on their lunch break. They know what it’s like to search endlessly, often fruitlessly for a job. This is the generation that graduated into the Great Recession, when the graduate schemes dried up and experience requirements cut off the first steps on the career ladder. It’s not that they don’t understand commitment or don’t want it, it’s just that they have only experienced it one-way, through jobs that only offer temporary or fixed-term contracts.

They see the employer as flexible and sharing their values.

A young, employable finance graduate with a couple of internships and some good references under their belt doesn’t have to work for a stuffy, centuries old bank. They can venture out on their own, join a dynamic young start-up or gamble with cutting edge trading technology. It’s telling that many large institutions are adopting this kind of culture, from sponsoring start-up incubators to experimenting with new technologies. A business that demonstrates fresh values and modern thinking is going to be far more attractive to the brightest of a generation.

They know that the company will work to accommodate their life goals.

Someone that’s gone straight from school to university to an internship to a job knows what they are missing. They can see other types of lives their friends are living from their Instagram feed every morning on their way to work. One rainy commute too many can spark a desire to go travel or live abroad while they are still young. Sabbaticals and career breaks are seen as something for those with decades of service, but that’s no help to a millennial. Knowing they can at least talk to their manager about the possibility of taking a break and coming back to their job means they won’t be afraid to both keep an eye on new opportunities and see themselves as contributing long-term to the company.

They aren’t starting out as a teenager, aren’t naive about the world and don’t want to be treated like that.

How company culture treats it’s youngest and newest workers says a lot about it. A millennial knows they’ve worked hard for a position; but if they come into a workplace where they are expected to get the milk or help with computer problems just because they’re the youngest, it may not sit well. They expect to be treated like an adult, and frankly deserve it. Unconscious bias across generational lines and outright age discrimination cuts both ways.

They know there are other options out there, from freelancing to travelling, but have made a positive choice to work for you.

It goes broader than business culture. It’s about showing them they can grow and develop in the company in the long-haul. A millennial is far more likely to put in a couple of years of learning the basics if they know a promotion will come at the end of it. If not, they’ll be looking around for other opportunities. This is why the Civil Service Fast Stream is one of the most popular destinations for graduates. Once accepted, they spend two years moving from role to role, before settling into a career path they know they can grow in. For millennials, the cost-benefit analysis of staying in a job or not might be made every single day. It’s up to the business, if it wants to keep the best talent, to make themselves the positive choice, not the default till something better comes along.

The risk of failing to attract top talent is real and significant. How to get that new hire to turn off the countdown clock till they leave and commit to your company is as hard as a marriage. But, like the ancient institution in the 21st century, it’s a partnership of equals. The employer and employee need to create a relationship of trust, openness and communication, based on a belief in compromise and mutual understanding of each other’s goals in life. In the age of Tinder and endless new opportunities at the swipe of a screen, it’s the only way to make a relationship last.