Learning more about millennials

March 4, 2020

Capital Rotary members got a lesson on “Generation Y” millennials from March 4 guest speaker Matt Vaadi, who heads ERG, a Columbia-based human resources and payroll services company. Vaadi (at right in photo with Rotarian Darren Foy) defined millennials as those 20 to 39 years old, born from 1980-1999. At 86.9 million, they’re today’s largest demographic and 54% of the workforce. They contribute $1.3 trillion to the economy and are 61% college-educated. But on average they change jobs every two years, costing some $30.5 billion in turnover/retraining. Vaadi said millennials are often described as entitled, but should be more accurately seen as achievement-oriented, socially conscious, team players, continuous learners, digitally dependent and optimistic. Their most valued employment benefits are training and development opportunities (22%), flexible working hours (10%), cash bonuses (14%), free private healthcare (8%) and retirement funding (6%). Vaadi said the keys to retaining millennial workers are job flexibility, recognition of their efforts and a feeling of “work family.” He said Generation Y likes to focus on the “why” of doing a job rather than the “how” or “what” the job entails.