Millennial women are entering the workplace at bigger numbers than women in prior generations; they are highly educated with higher graduation rates than men in their generation, writes leadership speaker and coach Dima Ghawi in her latest guest column in Business Report.
To continue to attract, engage and retain them, employers must understand and adapt to what 30-something females value in the workplace, Ghawi writes.
Millennial women want both career progression and work-life balance, she outlines in the column, but they also want gender equality and a company culture where feedback is provided often.
“Millennial women want to advance in business. However, they do not feel their professional growth should be at the expense of their personal lives and see work-life balance as a necessity to success,” Ghawi writes.
She says many of her clients also work for employers who promote their brand externally as valuing workplace gender equality, but internally are slow to change and attain tangible results. Meaning that a woman with great performance reviews could still lose out to a man with fewer accolades.
Ghawi also notes that a need for constant feedback may be surprising to the senior employees in the workplace who are not used to this. However, when you think about it, millennials have grown up with social media and are used to—and thrive on—getting instant “feedback” of likes and comments online.
“These three topics are being highlighted because they’re important to the engagement and retention of millennial women,” Ghawi writes. “However, when we’re looking at the bigger picture, these topics are important for improving employee engagement in general, regardless of gender or generation.”
Read her entire guest column.
