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Focusing on Your Employees

POSTED ON 
February 23, 2016
Do you really need to hold employee focus groups? The answer is yes. Among the many kind descriptors for millennials, one of the most common and pervasive is that they are entitled. I’ve heard it time and again as a big hurdle organizations must “deal” with as they march into the future. However, things get a little murky when trying to figure out just what millennials feel entitled to. Do they uniformly feel entitled to lavish perks like free meals, complementary dry cleaning and on-site massages? Or do they feel entitled to more basic things like yearly performance reviews, a clear career path and some flexible work options? One thing is for sure, as millennials continue to hear that their generation is entitled, they become less and less likely to speak up and voice their needs. Instead, they become disengaged, ready to jump ship to organizations that don’t see basic employee care as outlandish requests. If growing your aging organization is a strategic priority, it becomes essential to capture feedback in a safe and supportive environment so that management can flex with the changing needs of their workforce and remain competitive. The best way to do that is through employee focus groups. Sure, engagement surveys can provide insight too, but they are fraught with misinterpretation and can only achieve a surface-level assessment. Focus groups, on the other hand, can dig deeper into the root causes of issues and generate real change. And if your culture has been beating the entitlement drum, it will be all the more important for an outside partner (like Brilliant Ink) to conduct your employee focus groups for you so that employees feel free to share their concerns without fear of retribution. While the battle over entitlement will continue on, uncovering and addressing the real drivers of turnover and disengagement within the millennial population is work every company should feel entitled to.
Sara Forner Howland
HEAD OF STRATEGY

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