Millennials are sharing their expectations with businesses and businesses are starting to answer about them, Deloitte partner Lauren Foster says.
Ms Foster presented the findings from the Deloitte Global 2021 Millennial and gen Z Survey at an Institute of Directors Otago Southland branch event earlier this week.
Now in its 10th year, Deloitte surveyed more than 22,000 millennials and gen Zs globally, including 503 in New Zealand, made up of a range of 300 millennial and 203 gen Z respondents.
Four key themes emerged from the survey and the environment was ‘‘absolutely top concern’’ as it had been the previous year, for both millennials and gen Zs, Ms Foster said.
Many feared businesses’ commitment to helping combat climate change would be less of a priority as they battled with the challenges brought by Covid-19.
Stress and anxiety were prevalent in the workplace; the pandemic had created much uncertainty and stress about millennials’ and gen Zs’ financial futures, and many felt their employers had done a poor job of supporting their mental wellbeing during the period.
Data in the survey showed 69% of businesses were taking action to support mental wellbeing and 31% were not.
It was a reasonably new thing for businesses to be dealing with, Ms Foster said.
There had been a focus on health and safety, and how to keep employees safe.
Now, over the past five or so years, there had been a shift to keep employees safe from a mental health and wellness perspective, she said.
Millennials were looking for the ability to merge their work time and lives in a way that worked for them; Covid-19 had accelerated the shift to working from home, a set-up they wanted.
When it came to diversity and culture in business, millennials were not afraid to vote with their feet if they feel business not doing the things aligned with their values, Ms Foster said.
They felt diversity and inclusion needed to be pushed from the top down; millennials and gen Zs believed progress in fighting discrimination would come from a change in attitude and actions from those in power.
They wanted businesses to continue to focus on societal impact.
It was not enough just to do well and make money, there was an expectation they needed to ‘‘do good’’.
Ms Foster felt millennials got ‘‘unfairly smeared with a lot of things’’ and her advice to businesses always came down to communication.
If employers wanted to know what they needed to do to retain millennials, they should have open and transparent conversations, while making it clear they still had to run a business.
