Demystifying, and Retaining, Your Young Professionals

By Elise Gelwicks, Founder and CEO of Eleview Consulting

One of the most common frustrations I hear from executives centers around retaining their young professionals.  Companies are faced with keeping their highly ambitious, and at times perceived as entitled, early-career talent satisfied without handing out frequent title changes and salary bumps.

More than ever, young professionals are job-hopping on an annual basis in hopes of fast-tracking their careers. They’re vocal about asking for more from their employer, and they place a high value on flexible work arrangements. These trends of today’s young professionals are forcing employers to rethink their approach to attracting, retaining, and developing their people.

What few executives realize is that most young people are not quitting their jobs because of pay or title. The number one reason employees leave their company is inadequate career development.

You can give their young professionals, and all of their employees, opportunities for career development in a variety of ways.

Professional Development Programming

By offering workshops on the interpersonal skills needed to accelerate their careers and eventually take on managerial roles, employees feel invested in by their employer. Interactive, engaging workshops create a forum for conversation on the difficult situations that arise in any workplace. These training programs equip young professionals to navigate work dynamics tactfully and effectively.

While many companies invest in leadership development for current managers, there’s an arguably greater benefit in investing in development for young professionals before they become managers. This empowers everyone in the company, including individual contributors, to take ownership of their work and think like a leader. It also allows employees to seamlessly transition into managerial roles, rather than waiting until they’ve become a manager to learn how to lead their teams. Finally, this is a key component to retaining top talent.

Micro Leadership Experiences

Many young professionals actively ask for leadership roles and “more strategic work.” A great way to offer these experiences is through short-term leadership roles. For instance, if you have an internship program, ask a recent college grad to organize and plan it. You can also have recent college graduates take on the role of intern managers. Not only does this give them the opportunities they’re excited about, but it also gives you the chance to evaluate their capabilities as future leaders of your organization.

Feedback Frameworks

67% of young professionals say they need feedback from their manager at a minimum of every few weeks to stay in their job. This desire for constant feedback and validation takes away a lot of mental energy and time from managers. But, for young professionals, feedback gives them the security and validation they are used to consistently getting. If you think about it, young professionals are coming from the world of academia where they knew exactly where they stood in comparison to their peers and all expectations were abundantly clear. They knew they had a 93% in math and the class average was an 85%. Upon entering the workforce, it’s a difficult adjustment to get comfortable with ambiguity about your performance.

To bridge this gap between young professionals’ need for feedback and the reality of managers having limited bandwidth, companies can implement two practices: immediate feedback and structured career development conversations.

Immediate feedback requires a culture shift so everyone gets in the habit of giving feedback immediately after a conversation or meeting takes place. For example, if a young professional presented in a client meeting and kept saying the word “like,” the manager would tell the young professional that they did this as they are walking back to their desks from the meeting. In order for immediate and direct feedback to happen, everyone must do it on a regular basis.

Structured career development conversations are an efficient and effective way of giving young professionals the support and direction they need. Managers can schedule bi-monthly meetings with each person on their team to discuss the skills and experiences they’re most interested in. Notice that the conversation is not about job titles. Keep the conversation focused on bite-sized goals that you mutually agree will advance their career and build leadership capabilities. Having these meetings on the calendar gives the people on your team the assurance that their career development is a priority.

By implementing these strategies, your young professionals will feel valued and supported – leading to stronger business results and higher employee retention.

About Elise

Elise Gelwicks is the founder and CEO of Eleview Consulting. Eleview helps companies support their young professionals as they transition into the working world by facilitating workshops on the essential interpersonal and leadership skills, and by creating customized internship and onboarding programs.

Elise has been featured in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and ABC News and regularly works with LinkedIn to teach courses on interpersonal skills. She is a sought-after speaker at universities, companies, and conferences.

Learn more at EleviewConsulting.com.