By next year, Millennials are expected to comprise 36% of the U.S. workforce, and by 2020, Millennials will be nearly half of all workers. According to Forbes Magazine, Millennials are both “the most educated and culturally diverse of any generation” and “notorious job-hoppers who dislike bureaucracy and distrust traditional hierarchies.” Given this, it is crucial for manager to understand how best to motivate and engage Millennials.

In a recent article, Forbes Magazine described seven ways to motivate Millennials:

1. Explain The Company Vision: Millennial workers are more likely to look for meaning and impact in their work and aren’t satisfied simply punching a clock. Helping them understand their role in a larger plan gives them a clearer sense of purpose.

2. Prioritize Community Service: Millennials place a higher priority on helping people in need (21%) than having a high-paying career (15%). Allowing employees to form committees and use company resources or time to organize their causes meets their desire for social consciousness.

3. Develop In-Between Steps And Titles: Millennials are especially eager to progress in their careers and less willing to wait three to five years for a promotion. By developing in-between steps and titles, managers can meet their desire for career progression.

4. Give Encouragement And Regular Feedback: This generation responds well to encouragement and immediate feedback. Make it clear from the beginning that you reward good work, and then keep an open line of communication to let them know how they’re doing and how they can improve.

5. Offer More Flexibility: Work-life balance is one of the most significant drivers of employee retention among Millennials. This tech-savvy generation is essentially able to work anytime from anywhere with an Internet connection. Thus, seemingly arbitrary work hours or having to sit at a desk all day is less appealing to them.

6. Provide Education And Professional Development: Most Millennials are hungry and want to advance. Assigning stretch projects, bringing in speakers or sending employees to leadership conferences will be especially helpful for those millennial workers interested in learning and growing their skills.

7. Give Them Time For Personal Projects: Offer employees time to work on a project of their choosing. This will help Millennials feel more engaged and in control and also can boost innovation within the company

For more on each of this steps, click here for the full article.

In 2004, Best Buy began its Results-Only Work Environment, or ROWE, program, which gave employees control over when and how they worked, so long as they produced results. Earlier this month Best Buy announced a plan to end the ROWE program. Inc. Magazine recently ran an interview with Jody Thompson, the creator of Best Buy‘s ROWE program, on why the company’s move to eliminate it is a bad idea.

As Jody Thompson says:

A results-only environment works for every single person on the planet. It’s not a flexibility program. It involves thinking about your work and how to accomplish it, and then being where you need to be to make that happen. Now, you might say, “What about a bus driver?” Well, if the bus driver doesn’t give you his route, and the people aren’t happy, then he hasn’t achieved his results. There’s always a measure of results, and you hold people accountable to that outcome. We’ve worked with companies in child care, manufacturing, a nursing home, education. It works anywhere.

For more, click here to read the full article.

What does this mean for HR professionals?

Read the full article here>

Jeanne will be continuing this discussion on the saving patterns of Gen Y when she speaks at the coming TD Ameritrade Institutional 2012 conference, “Shaping The Future Together.” Jeanne is speaking about “Learn What Gen X and Gen Y Want in the Workplace.”

We will be checking our Twitter feed so send us your questions on this topic to #TDAI2012 and we’ll will write a future post on the dialogue and questions about Gen X and Gen Y.

So what does this mean for you in HR and talent management?
Read the full article here >

That’s our take … what’s yours? We want to hear from you – especially if you are a member of Gen X or a Millennial. Send us your comments, and we will continue the dialogue.

1. Claim your name everywhere to build credibility with customers and search engines. Not only do you need Facebook and Twitter accounts, but you’ll need to stake your claim on Google+ and LinkedIn with company pages as well.

2. Have clear month-by-month goals and make sure to get trained in social media tools early in the year. Make plans to meet your goals month-to-month and be sure to assign the proper resources to it.

3. Use free tools like Klout, Google Analytics, and Hootsuite to measure your social media progress. Crunch the numbers: track numbers of visitors and evaluate your social media usage.

4.Think about hiring an expert in social media development or take a course in social media literacy. A growing number of companies are creating social media literacy programs, ranging from Dell, Intel, Unisys and Telstra. We expect more companies to make social media training mandatory for all employees and new hires.

5. Add direct links of  your social media pages on all your printed materials. Once you’ve got your social media profiles set up, make sure that you’re letting people know about them by adding links to your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ pages to all your business cards, brochures, fliers, and any other printed materials, as well as presentation files and infographics.

Of course if you want to gain some hands-on experience in making these strategies work for your organization and at Future Workplace we have created Social Learning Boot Camp this March 19-20th hosted by IESE Business School in New York City. This Boot Camp also includes a complimentary iPad2 for the first 50 attendees. Hope to see you in New York City in March!

In the meantime, share here with us what your organization is doing to build social media literacy among all employees.