The Millennials are coming, the Millennials are coming … the Millennials are here! Armed with shiny smart phones, mobile devices, and cloud based technology, this knowledgeable group of technological revolutionaries are ready to collaborate and contribute to your workforce. More than 1 out of every 3 workers today belong to the Millennial generation and, by 2025, Millennials are expected to comprise nearly 75% of the global workforce (The Brookings Institution, 2014). The Millennials are here to stay and they are raising the technological bar for companies across the globe. While their presence in the workforce is well known, their longevity with any one employer is not. In fact, a 2016 study showed that “66% of Millennials express a desire to leave their organizations by 2020” (Deloitte, 2016). With the cost of recruiting and training new employees ever soaring, retaining Millennials is of paramount importance to most employers.
Perhaps the first step to retaining Millennials is to communicate with them using the technological platform that they desire, which is through mobile devices. With nearly two-thirds of Americans owning a smart phone, mobile devices have become a “key entry point to the online world” not only for Millennials but for other generations in the workforce as well (Pew Research Center, 2015). For Millennials, in particular, mobile devices have become an extension of who they are. Recent research showed usage increasing for mobile devices with nearly 78% of consumer interactions occurring on them (Fluent, 2016).
The question becomes what does this mean for the HR industry. Well, in order to attract and retain Millennial employees, you must provide them with customized benefits, via a mobile app, that meets their individual needs and life events! Research supports that our modern workforce, including Millennials, feels that “benefits that can be customized to meet their needs, would increase their loyalty to their employers” (MetLife, 2016). Marry mobile technology to a tailored benefits package - and a highly engaging benefits mobile app is born!
How pressing is the need for a benefits mobile app to engage your Millennial workforce? A recent study found that a “desire for mobile communication among employees” for benefit information is on the rise (MetLife 2015). Employees are increasingly eager to use a mobile app to manage benefits, access benefit enrollment information, and for learning and benefit education. (MetLife 2015). Nearly 53% of these employees in this same study reported a need, however, for “more help understanding how their benefits work or how benefits meet their needs”. Millennials, in particular, evidenced “greater gaps in understanding” their benefits due, perhaps, to “a lack of awareness and exposure over the course of their relatively new career spans” (Metlife 2016).
It’s time to bridge the generational gap in benefit understanding and communicate benefit information using the technological tools preferred by Millennials with a benefits mobile app! The result will be an engaged, productive, and loyal workforce.
Contact eni for a complimentary demo of the revolutionary new mobile app that places all your employees’ benefits in the palm of their hand!