According to a survey conducted by Joblist, Millennials are by far the most preferential when working remotely vs. in the office. 49% of millennials want to work from home compared to 40% of Gen X, 40% of Baby Boomers, and 27% of Gen Z.
Millennials comprise 35% of the US labor force, making them the largest working generation. Missing the buy-in from this demographic can hugely impact the overall results of your efforts, including those efforts to reengage your team in office and maximize your commercial real estate investment.
Company leaders are continuing to realize the dilution of culture, productivity, and organizational value that occurs in a remote environment. Steve Blank, known for his expertise in the Lean Startup methodology, reinforces Axel Anderson's insights. In an article for Inc. magazine,
“Startups with Employees in the Office Grow 3.5 Times Faster,” he emphasizes that "Research since the 20th century has proven that informal face-to-face interaction is crucial for coordinating group activities, nurturing company culture, and fostering team cohesion."
This underscores the value of bringing employees back into the office, where such interactions naturally occur, enhancing collaboration, creativity, and overall team dynamics.
The question of how to attract Millennials back into the workplace prompts one of the oldest questions known to man. "Which method will be more effective, the carrot or the stick?"
The workplace has been a pendulum of experiences over the last few years, thanks to the pandemic and post-pandemic environments. Now, with the fears of Covid-19 in the rearview mirror, they are currently racking their brains to figure out how to get their mid-level employees happily back into the office.
Corporate leaders adopted hybrid or work-from-home models at the beginning of the pandemic to keep their employees safe and retain talent. That said, according to KPMG's Global CEO Outlook, "63% of CEOs predict a full return to in-office work by the end of 2026" and are pushing hard to get people back into the office. The risk is that retention is still an issue if leaders push too hard to get people back to the office. To the boon of organizational leaders everywhere, a return to the workplace is being aided by a gradual shift from an employee-driven to an employer-driven jobs market.
With the rise in the labor participation rate, in combination with the steady unemployment rate, comes more competition for available jobs as more people reenter the workforce voluntarily. When jobs are more challenging to secure, employers can make more demands. This trend has led to a significant shift in job descriptions; more and more companies are posting positions with some in-office responsibilities at minimum.
While many employees continue to be reluctant to comply with employers' requests to return to the office, I predict that the "return-to-the-office-or-else” stick will make a grand appearance nationwide as employers lose patience. We've already seen this power leveraged in the form of layoffs in the tech industry, as some employers see an unspoken added benefit to expel some cultural habits that have developed over the past few years, such as a deep preference to work remotely.
While effective for many business leaders, there are better times to adopt the stick approach than now, as it can hurt internal morale, stability, and external reputations.
Suppose you're trying to attract, not force, your Millennial employees back into the office. In that case, figuring out where to start can be challenging, especially when the office is now seen as an unnecessary evil, and these mid-level workers state they are more effective at working from home.
Pre-pandemic, thanks to many, many online articles, the statement "Millennials need ping pong tables to be happy" was spoken as a pure truth. Today, articles like "Your Ping-Pong Table Sucks: What Millennials Actually Want" from the Undercover Recruiter state that what Millennials actually want is far more complex and yet at the same time unsurprising. In the article, writer Axel Andersen states that the things that Millennials want comes down to these seven items:
1. Professional Development
2. Autonomy
3. Shared Achievement
4. Flexible Schedule
5. Creative Freedom
6. Aligned Values
7. Challenging Opportunities
These seven things are all great items to strive for and should be the baseline for your strategic hiring strategy. The problem? These things are critical to retaining your mid-level talent, but companies need to implement more to attract Millennials back into the office.
For it to make sense to come into an office rather than execute the job from home, you need not just to provide the physical space for your team to work but to curate an experience for your team that they can't get from home—and that experience shouldn't revolve around perks employees feel might get them in trouble if they use too much…*cough cough* meditation rooms or ping pong tables…
Your curated experience must revolve heavily around collaboration, community, and individualism. At the same time, you can sprinkle novelties into the mix to keep things exciting or serve as a talking point when your employees talk about their jobs to their friends. With the right commercial real estate, exemplary leadership in place, and the right advice, you can create an office environment that makes it more enjoyable for everyone involved and hopefully allows you to avoid the stick altogether.
Beyond Axel Andersen's advice, here are some in vs. out ideas that could help you curate a thriving office environment.
First and foremost, you need to have strong core values, but more importantly, those core values need to be reflected in your people. From top to bottom, each person needs to adopt and live by the core values. Here at Keyser, we have 15 core operating principles revolving around selfless service, being bold without fear of punishment, and remaining 100% coachable. We hire and fire based on these principles because we've found that you need to inspire an environment where each interaction reflects the culture.
It's trending on social media that the 9-to-5, or more likely the 8-to-5 schedule, is outdated and leaves people feeling drained. Since cutting hours is not a step most companies are willing to take; instead, consider trading remote work for a more desirable schedule that gives your team a better work-life balance.
Healthy snacks, free frozen breakfast options, fitness space, and local catering are perks; treat them like a cherry on top, not the whole sundae.
Giving each employee a stipend to spend on personalizing their space will encourage them to make it a place they WANT to be rather than have to be. Feeling valued for your uniqueness promotes creativity and individualism in an environment that can tend to feel stuffy for many millennial workers.
If you can provide more natural light and functional patio space, it's worth the investment. Natural light has many mental and general health benefits, and making these spaces functional by adding electrical outlets can have far-reaching benefits.
Now, for the cringe-worthy things you should abandon.
Who has an indoor mini golf course in their office? As commercial real estate brokers, we've toured various spaces, and it's come up more than once. When you're walking potential recruits around your space, it may be intriguing, but when it comes to actual use, it's wasted space. For many employees, it feels dangerous to use these "perks" because they can be misconstrued as slacking off. Also, the line between what's an acceptable time allotment and what's not in a workplace often needs to be clarified.
Beanbag chairs and seating options that are too casual are out. Once again, perception in a workplace plays a heavy role in what's acceptable and what's not. You may have had good intentions to make your team feel comfortable in the seating, but there's a time and a place for everything, and this is an easy thing to nix that will help everyone understand the expectations of office etiquette.
Once again, trending on social media is the stigma of pizza parties. People still love food, but it's not a replacement for a good culture or benefits. While pizza is easy, if you want to provide food, it's better to order local catering to redirect any negative stigmas of a pizza party.
Providing non-public parking for your employees is helpful. There's nothing more frustrating after a 30+ minute commute than having to drive around multiple parking garage levels to find a spot.
While the popularity of open-concept offices took a step back during and after the pandemic, having high-wall cubicles is even worse. Commit to offices or an open concept. Being in between removes the ability to collaborate in the spur of the moment but doesn't provide enough privacy to focus.
The concept of a roll-up door is excellent, but if the door is only open for 1 or 2 days a year, what's the point?
Visualize this: snacks on open shelving with a self-pay kiosk, cameras, and signage to avoid theft. That shows a significant level of distrust in your workplace, and it's better to nix snacks altogether than to provide this.
The right office space can be one of your most effective recruiting tools and often indicates organizational well-being and financial stability. If your commercial real estate is not supporting your efforts to attract and retain top talent, it may be time to rethink your commercial real estate strategy.