As those are the number from the United States, it can be quickly confronted with other markets and economies. As the most significant group of potential candidates is among the millennials, building employer branding strategy needs to contain knowledge about them.
Who to employ?
Among all of the generations available on the market as potential employees, Millennials are the most significant and most promising group. They are in the age to start their professional career, have a lot of desired skills and are open for the new challenges. But on the other side, they also have big expectations.
According to a Business Insider survey, "69% of people 18 to 34 years old said they thought they learned more from technology than from people, compared with 50% of people older than 45 who said the same."
Nowadays, getting the job is much easier than five or ten years ago. The unemployment rate in most of the developed countries is declining year after year. A lot of companies are fighting not only to recruit the right person but also to maintain such environment to keep the new employee satisfied and stay longer within the organization. And potential employees know about that, so they don't take the first offer, but do research, read the opinion about companies. According to the Gallup survey, 75% of them turn to family and friends when making career decisions. They also try to find out the way the future employer could fit into their path of development. And this is one of the most critical factors.
We are living in the environment overloaded with data and distractors that are ubiquitous. Time is becoming the most valuable asset. Especially for the millennials. Their expectations are much higher comparing to older generations. Taking as much as they can from every situation, living each day to the full is what they need. An old model in which you work in one or two places for the whole life to live a stable and predictable life isn't what they need. Looking at millennials parents whose goal was to work entire career to earn for the dream retirement isn't appealing anymore. They are afraid that when they become elderly, they wouldn't have the vital strength to realize their plans. So they are looking for a workplace which will respect their time.
How to respect Millennial's time?
The potential employer should take a look at the workflow inside the company. How is it organize? How much time is consumed by endless meetings, conference calls, stand-ups? What is the model of sharing knowledge, learning new things? As the older generations are used to course books, and long lasting lectures, for people born after 1990 there are much more options to choose. Millennials, mostly raised in an internet era, have a whole spectrum of learning facilities. They are great in searching and filtering of unnecessary information. Spending three hours at the traditional training session to learn some new feature could be a waste of time since they can get into this knowledge faster and more efficiently.
So how do they learn things? The era of social media changed the way people process information. From long forms, in case of which the full and undistracted attention was needed for an extended period, it developed into short but aggregated forms. Few words, one picture or a short movie and a bunch of hashtags, the modern version of catalog cards in the library, revolutionized communication. While people used to it, they change not only the habits of social activities but also how they learn new things. A few years ago the infographics became very powerful and effective solution. Mixing words, images, and milestones was an excellent idea to summarize the knowledge. But it still wasn't the best way to teach new things. Now it is going even further thanks to microlearning.
What is microlearning and why it is so beneficial?
Microlearning is a metaphor describing various micro aspects of different learning models, concepts and processes. By dividing a full range of material into smaller pieces, it is more useful to learn. What's more, it seems to be the perfect solution for millennials, as they are used to that way of absorbing knowledge. Being accustomed to it is just one benefit. Another one is even more important. With microlearning, time is the essence. Small units of knowledge are more manageable than old-fashioned training, so it is easier to put them into the busy corporate calendar. Not only millennials will appreciate that. It is a win-win situation for all company's stakeholders. Only one question remains. How to do it?
One of the best options to provide the benefits of microlearning is to use Highp. It is the platform that offers a modern solution for communication with employees regardless of their technological advancement and technical skills. Thanks to the intuitive system of video messages it is perfect for microlearning. The owner of the platform could analyze the effectiveness and assess the knowledge of the employees.
What is more, Highp uses audio and video to reach employees directly with the knowledge they need at the specific moment, when they can get acquainted with it. With the whole range of short tests, it will adapt to their needs. The minimum amount of information at one time is beneficial. As the Highp message can be sent in accordance with the schedule of each user or accelerate depending on the engagement Highp allows you to present knowledge to millennials in a tailor-made way. The course can be adjusted which gives the opportunity to choose an educational path which the employee more expects at the moment.
For companies that believe in employer branding, it is an affordable form of reaching employees with short but critical information. It increases the involvement in a company's life, its goals, products, mission and much more. On the broader spectrum, it builds the company's image and offers the employees a continuous and substantive development. For millennials staying on the market as a qualified professional is substantial.
That could be the first and easy to reach the step of becoming not only the respected employer but also the one that listens to its employees and takes their needs into account. As financial benefits are essential, probably the most valuable ones are those related to time. It also helps in checking what is crucial for the ones who are building the organization. If time is this factor, it is also great news for the board. There is nothing better than having a team of professionals who are concerned about time management. That shows dedication to push things forward.