Millennial to employers: 4 reasons we keep quitting

It’s rare to find something HR-handy on Facebook these days. Between your friends sharing their baby photos and political opinions, there isn’t much room left for stuff to help with your job. But we had to share this Facebook find with our HR Morning audience.

A reader, a Millennial himself, spotted and shared this Forbes.com article.

It’s entitled, “Why Millennials Keep Dumping You: An Open Letter to Management.”

It contains a letter penned by Elizabeth McLeod, a millennial and cum laude graduate of Boston University. She’s the daughter of Lisa Earle McLeod, a best-selling author and creator of the popular business concept Noble Purpose, who also has a regular column at Forbes.

In McLeod’s letter, which is simply addressed “to Management,” she beautifully combats the common stereotypes placed upon Millennials — stereotypes like they don’t settle down, they’re fickle, and they only care about themselves and not the companies they work for.

Top reasons you can’t keep Millennials

She does so with a list of specific reasons Millennials hand in their resignation letters shortly into their tenures with employers.

Here it is:

1. You put up with low performers. Millennials want to make a difference and be a top-producer, but they don’t want to be held down by those whom McLeod called the “Donna-Do-Nothings.” She said after a while, Millennials with a great work ethic will begin to wonder why management puts up with extremely sub-par performance. Then, after a while, they’ll assume that’s the standard and will want no part of it.
2. You’re too focused on money. Again, Millennials want to make a difference — and they want it to be somewhere other than the bottom line. Yes, they understand the company needs to make money. But they don’t want that to be the sole focus. They want to know that their work is helping customers or the community in some way. A great point McLeod makes further down in her letter: “… I’ll (meaning Millennials in general) will do the grunt work. But I’m not doing [it] to help you get a new Mercedes.”
3. Good culture doesn’t mean free meals. “Don’t confuse culture with collateral,” McLeod wrote. While she said she appreciates a free lunch, she doesn’t wake up in the morning and come to work to get one. “I need to be surrounded by people who are on fire for what we’re doing. I need a manager who is motivated to push boundaries and think differently,” she added.
4. You treat people like a number. Treat her like a number or a cog in a wheel, and she’ll just start showing up just to get a paycheck — like Donna-Do-Nothing. That’s not what you want to happen. You want people who will show up and care about producing quality work. But that’s not what you’re going to get if you don’t show Millennials why their work matters — again, beyond padding the corporate bank account.