Is your company slowly and steadily increasing its employee base of millennials? Well there’s a good chance if you’re inducting a young workforce you’re hiring millennials. This interesting group – described as anyone born in the 1980’s and 1990’s – requires companies to have a separate strategy on how to communicate and engage with them. And that’s because they bring with them a new way of thinking about work and personal life and a new way of using technology. You’ll often find them using personal devices for work functions and work devices for personal activities, unlike your more mature employees who’ve traditionally kept things apart. What they also bring to your work environment is a new mindset. A mindset that states they have no time or interest in traditional corporate ways, cultures and strategies of engagement. Thus, raising the challenge of how you can motivate millennials.

In the recent past, companies have had to alter their landscape of doing business. Whether you consider how they communicate (internally or externally) or how they promote loyalty, to the way business relationships are maintained, it’s all being revamped. And much of it is because your workforce now comprises of a group who were born with smart phones and smart gadgets in their hands. The biggest challenge for companies today is not only how to attract this talented group, but also how to motivate millennials and retain them. With their candid absence of allegiance, fulfilling your corporate goals can be a nightmare!

So keeping the dynamics of your workforce and the challenges they bring along with them, how do you motivate millennials and extract the most from their skill and talent?

1. Alter Your Focus

Speak to millennials in the language they know and understand. Throwing corporate gimmickry and jargon at millennials will only deflect them and make your company even more undesirable to them. Often companies get stuck on their focus on ‘customer experience’. While this may have been a workable attitude 10 years ago, today only focusing on the customer side of the equation won’t yield the drive you’re aiming to extract from your workforce. To drive loyalty and enhance engagement among the digital workforce you need to balance both sides of the customer and employee equation. Rather than writing off millennials because of their shorter attention span, learn from them and alter your focus on them.

2. Bring the Game To Them

The Talent Games knows very well that digital motivation works tremendously in the business environment – particularly when it you’re aiming to engage and motivate millennials. You don’t have to create all new strategies to drive them. By simply adding a new layer of gamification to your proven engagement and motivation strategies you’ll be able to drive higher loyalties from millennials. This group of talent is already familiar with games (mobile and console games). So basically you’re taking their trusted and reliable method of engagement and bringing the game to them in the workplace. Through gamification you’ll be able to create an environment of friendly competition and make things fun for your employees. As a result you’ll be able to align them to your strategies and goals.

3. Embrace Mobility

This one’s a no-brainer since everything is mobile enabled now – and so should be your organization. From dashboards, to communication and even work itself, your business needs to embrace mobility and rely heavily on a mobile model. We’re so dependent on our mobiles that it’s become an extension of us. Your company should capitalize on this as well. Whether you’re considering gamification or other online interactions, embracing mobility is the proven way to motivate millennials.

4. People First

Whether you have a unique product or service or your company is a global giant means little to millennials. To them what’s important is how you treat people – both employees and customers. Hence, you need to embark on a journey that creates a customer and employee experience built on a supportive environment. It’s not about your bottom line anymore. Aligning millennials to your products and services is an uphill battle that you’ll never be able to conquer. Instead, align your business model around their viewpoint, their needs and their style of engagement.

Millennials are no doubt a talented group that are fast becoming the predominant population of your workforce. You could crib all you want about their way of working, however, it’ll only increase your frustration in how to engage, align and retain them. Instead, adapt a model that speaks their language and dabble in gamification. You’ll find it a rewarding experience particularly as you aim to engage and motivate millennials.

Learn how you can take your leadership teams through a growth model which will help them mature on a personal and professional level by following me on LinkedIn and subscribing to the Keijzer Community.

Paul Keijzer is the CEO and Founder of Engage Consulting and the co-Founder of The Talent Games, which aims to transform HR by digitising talent processes and creating more engaging and productive workplaces through gamification and mobile technology. As a global HR and Leadership Management expert, Paul knows how to combine business insights with people insights to transform organisations and put them on the path to growth.