Millennials can seem like a different breed. They are changing the workforce in big ways, but managers can’t manage millennials in the same way they have previous generations. Rather than throwing out the management rule book, there are several things you can do to help your team achieve their full potential. Don’t get too bogged down in what makes millennials different from your other employees. When it comes to managing this younger generation, you can learn a lot about how to better manage the rest of your workforce at the same time. Here are our best tips.

1. Adjust Your Communication Style

Millennials are special in that they expect to be fully included in decision-making processes, and really communicated with rather than spoken to or managed. You can provide those opportunities and make adjustments to communication styles as needed to help attract and retain employees that will bring a renewed energy to your daily work. These simple adjustments might even infuse new energy into your older employees as well, as an engaging corporate culture is sure to benefit the team as a whole.

2. Focus on Engagement

Millennials want to do work that is engaging and stimulating. Managers can leverage this by having their fingers on the pulse of each team members’ overall engagement level and interests, as well as their performance. Creating an open conversation about goal setting and career development will bring the long-term interests of an employee to the forefront of the conversation.

Understanding how unique skills and personalities provide value within the context of the projects they work on is critical. This provides the information you need as a manager to directly engage and maintain their interest in the work. Offering the opportunity for regular one-on-one meetings or mentorship programs can make employees feel leadership is fully invested in their engagement, their success and their overall happiness.

3. Show Your Appreciation

Appreciation can take the form of appropriate financial compensation, but more often than not it is a simply about recognition. Each employee has a different way in which they feel appreciated, and managers are regularly tasked with finding out how their top performers prefer to be recognized and rewarded for their successes.

4. Create Strong Culture

In terms of overall worker happiness, the modern millennial is looking for more than the standard benefits and compensation packages. There will always be another company willing to offer a little more money to retain their top employees, but consider what you can offer beyond a pay bump. It really comes down to work culture in the end. Offering extra paid time off, sick leave, maternity or paternity leave will show you value their happiness outside of the workplace as much as within. Encouraging staff to maintain healthy lifestyles with a paid gym membership or extracurricular activities helps create the work-life balance that maintains emotional contentment.

For more tips to connect with the next generation of thought leaders, contact the team at Verum Technical to see how.