The millennial generation reshaping the workplace: what changes are needed for organizations to attract and retain employees ?

This report aims to measure how different is the Millennial generation from the Western world from their predecessors and identify ways in which firms should adapt in order to attract and retain these new talents. These recommendations will not only take into account generational aspects of this challenge, but also the overall environment and the different forces shaping the future of work. Two main challenges are to be linked with this generation in the workplace. The first one lies in the fact that the Millennial generation does not have the same expectations, needs and ambitions from a career. The second challenge is the cohabitation of four generations in the workplace, which will be challenging as they will not have a common language to speak with and could result in conflictual situations due to their differences. In order to answer to these identified challenges and for my recommendations to be viable, this work’s introduction set the overall context used to understand the global future of work, the different aspects of a firm’s structure and finally a thorough analyse of each generation which will need to collaborate in the workplace, namely the Baby-boomers, Generation X and the Millennials. The second part of this thesis analyses the results from my qualitative and quantitative research on the subject. The qualitative research represents four different interviews of firms from different industries and the qualitative research has been done through a survey sent to the particular Millennial population of Swiss apprentices, in order to complete the very thorough Deloitte research on Millennials, which does not take into account this population. Finally, my recommendations highlight how firms can adapt various aspects of their internal organization in order to attract and retain the talents of this Millennial generation, but also survive in the workplace of the future