Leaders.com
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Business
  • Leadership
  • Wealth
  • Master Classes
  • Business
    • Entrepreneurs
    • Executives
    • Marketing and Sales
    • Social Media
    • Innovation
    • Women in Business
  • Leadership
    • Personal Growth
    • Company Culture
    • Public Speaking
    • Productivity
    • Hiring
    • Social Issues
    • Leaders
  • Wealth
    • Investing
    • Cryptocurrency
    • Retirement
    • Venture Capital
    • Loans and Borrowing
    • Taxes
    • Markets
    • Real Estate
  • Master Classes
  • Login
  • Subscribe
Company Culture Millennials

Leaders need new strategies to connect to young people (Roberto Ricciuti/Redferns)

By Tyler Hummel Leaders Staff

Tyler Hummel

Tyler Hummel

Tyler Hummel is a news writer for Leaders Media. He was the Fall 2021 College Fix Fellow and Health Care...

Full bio


Learn about our editorial policy

Mar 7, 2023

Leading a Changing Workforce 

The world is changing, and so is the workforce, as it grows younger and its values vary with the times—creating challenges for business leaders who need to find new ways to connect with young people. 

Key Details

  • Heather McGowan is the co-author of The Empathy Advantage: Leading the Empowered Workforce, which releases on Wednesday, March 8. 
  • Speaking With Forbes, McGowan says the workforce has faced three years of unexpected and rapid transformation—including technological innovations, pandemic restrictions, and the rapid shift in millennial gender norms. 
  • These changes are evolving how executives and managers connect with and lead younger employees. 
  • McGowan says that leaning into those changes can help create purpose-driven employees that buck recent trends like “quiet quitting.”

Why It’s Important 

The millennial and zoomer generations have long been understood to be different and less conventional than previous generations—being more tech-savvy, less interested in older ways of thinking, and more open-minded to radical new ideas. 

This has made it difficult for some managers and business leaders to understand or connect to younger employees, who they see as lazy or entitled. However, these young people represent the future of the workforce. Learning to communicate with and lead them will be the secret to success for businesses and industries. 

Key Takeaways

McGowan recommends several considerations for leaders who want to foster meaning and purpose in their younger employees’ work—the first being to structure work so that young employees are always learning. She says skill development is a powerful incentive for young employees to feel belonging and meaning in their work.  

Her suggestions come in how leaders frame work for their employees. Borrowing from other contemporary business leaders, she suggests managers design jobs around “homes,” giving employees specific functions and projects—a primary role, temporary assignments, and a research area. 

Leaders should also frame assignments as “tours of duty.” McGowan notes that this sets expectations for employees regarding commitments, responsibilities, and goals. Finally, leaders should “sculpt” jobs based on life interests, finding ways to engage employees more with their work based on what drives them. With larger projects, employees functionally “consult” on specific aspects of a larger project, focusing on one part that excites them. 

Home / News / Leading a Changing Workforce 
Share
FacebookTweetEmailLinkedIn

Related Stories

Empathy Is A Leadership Skill 

by Tyler Hummel Leaders Staff
Company Culture

Mar 21, 2023

Empathy

The stressful and evolving economy has made trust, loyalty, and empathy in the workplace more important than ever. 

Key Details

  • Elisa A. Schmitz, founder and CEO of 30Seconds.com, writes in a recent op-ed for CEO World that the ability “to put yourself in their shoes and see the world through their eyes” and empathize with employees is vital. 
  • Building connections with staff—building trust and loyalty—can be a powerful solution to a workplace where burnout and stress have become the new normal. 
  • Uniting a team around a shared compassionate vision can improve a team’s “employee satisfaction, growth, innovation, productivity, and retention,” according to Schmitz.

Go deeper

FacebookTweetEmailLinkedIn

Help Wanted … Just Kidding

by Savannah Young Leaders Staff
Business

Mar 20, 2023

Employees looking for jobs online are becoming frustrated as many job postings are not linked to real jobs as businesses freeze hiring.

Key Details

  • The current labor market is strong, with 10.8 million job openings listed in January, according to the Labor Department.
  • Many companies have paused hiring but leave job listings up to have a pool of potential candidates when the job needs to be filled.
  • In a survey of more than 1,000 hiring managers last year, 27% reported having job postings up for more than four months, according to a study by Clarify Capital.
  • One-third of the hiring managers say they left the ads up so it looked like the companies were hiring so overworked employees wouldn’t be frustrated, while 50% say they left them up to give the impression the companies were growing.

Go deeper

FacebookTweetEmailLinkedIn

When Companies Beckon Employees Back

by Savannah Young Leaders Staff
Business

Mar 20, 2023

Amazon is among many large companies ordering workers back to the office

Many large companies are dialing back on their remote-working guidelines and setting dates mandatory back-to-office deadlines.

Key Details

  • Many of America’s biggest cities saw more than 50% of workers return to the office this year for the first time since the pandemic, according to Bloomberg.
  • Many of the large corporate businesses are setting deadlines for workers to return to the office and eliminating remote work.
  • Eight of the businesses shifting back to in-office work, according to Bloomberg…
  • Amazon
  • General Motors Co.
  • Meta Platforms
  • News Corp
  • Snap Inc.
  • Starbucks Corp.
  • Walmart Inc.
  • Walt Disney Co.

Go deeper

FacebookTweetEmailLinkedIn
miliary tech
Hiring

Mar 17, 2023

Attention … Where Laid-Off Tech Workers Are Moving

by Hannah Bryan Leaders Staff
Entertainment

Mar 16, 2023

One Basketball Coach’s Lesson On CEO Longevity

by Hannah Bryan Leaders Staff
Company Culture

Mar 16, 2023

Facebook Makes Most Of Layoff Reality

by Hannah Bryan Leaders Staff

Recent Articles

Leadership

About an hour ago

Creating Loyal Employees Is About More Than Just the Paycheck

If you think simply paying your employees more will gain their loyalty, think again.

Business

Mar 20, 2023

Worried About ADHD At Work? Here’s How It Might Actually Help You

Neurodivergent people often have a high level of creativity and innovative thinking.

Productivity

Mar 17, 2023

Unlocking Your Inner Drive: How to Motivate Yourself

Make real progress by trying out these techniques for boosting your self-motivation.

  • Business
  • Leadership
  • Wealth
Join the Leaders Community

Get exclusive tools and resources you need to grow as a leader and scale a purpose-driven business.

Subscribing indicates your consent to our Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy

Leaders.com
  • Privacy Policy
  • About
  • Careers
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms
  • Disclosures
  • Editorial Policy
  • Member Login

© 2023 Leaders.com - All rights reserved.

Search Leaders.com