Promotions and Money. These two things have been the sole motivating and driving force behind the American workforce.  Well, not so much anymore. As the workforce broadens its spectrum, and the younger generation increasingly begins to fill their roles in the professional world, their expectations are changing, as well as their motivations.

Millennial’s still share some common major motivations for performance, but the order of importance is just arranged differently. But how can managers motivate and incentivize their employees on a smaller scale?  Well it’s not too hard to motivate them, you just have to figure out what makes them tick, and most likely it’s not the same thing that motivates you.

Let’s look at two different scenarios.

The first:  A law firm is working on a large case with the deadline only three weeks away. The intense workload requires all associates on the case to put in 80+ hours a week to complete the work on time.

The second: A certain shipping and distribution warehouse is ranked the lowest in overall productivity in the region due to high turnover.  The plant manager wants a push to meet productivity benchmarks through the quarter’s end, when they can hire more workers.  He needs to incentivize the current workers to hit certain daily and weekly numbers to ensure the warehouse meets the benchmarks and rises from the bottom ranking.

How can these two very different workplaces and situations use similar tactics to motivate their Gen Y workers?

1)      Start by considering what really motivates them.  Remember, Millennials are not as enamored with promises of future promotions and rewards as you might be.  Get to know your team and find out their personality traits, likes and dislikes.  Whether you are able to learn about them individually, like in the law firm; or as a group, like in the warehouse; managers that know what makes their employees tick are the most successful motivators, and tend to be respected managers.

2)      Translate what interests them into something that might incentivize them.  For example, perhaps your team is made of up social butterflies.  They like going out in evenings after work, and spend late nights out on the town on the weekends.  Incentivize performance with a morning off the day after St. Patrick’s Day.

Perhaps the warehouse employees are interested in videogames and technology.  So the manager purchases a $300 Playstation and a few Best Buy gift cards for smaller increments and holds a contest for meeting the benchmarks.  He tracks the competition on a board near the vending machine where everyone can see it.  Suddenly friendly competition is sparked, the benchmarks are met and exceeded, and it only cost the manager a few hundred dollars.

3)      Instigate some friendly competition!  Whether it was gold stars in elementary school, vying for the top grade in class, making the varsity track team, or giving the best class presentation, Gen Y is used to competition.  Don’t be afraid to create fun contests with small rewards along the way, like lattes, lunch, or a taking off an hour early are great ways to power your employees through projects and deadline while keeping morale and performance high.

The key when incentivizing your employees is to tap into their personalities and the group dynamic. And don’t be afraid to ask them, they probably already have some ideas and suggestions for ways you could motivate and reward them.

We spend a lot of time talking with Gen Y’ers about their experiences and perceptions of the workplace and their careers. Here’s some examples of ways to not motivate your employees!

How Not to Incentive Your Employees:

Some true ways that companies have tried to incentivize employees:

“Our company cut our bonuses due to the recession.  But they tried to make it sound good by changing the dress code to casual. They told us that we didn’t have to dress professionally for work anymore, so we’d save money on dry cleaning bills and it’d be a one-off.”

“We got baby trees for Arbor Day to reward us for a good quarter.  We busted our humps and I’m pretty sure those trees cost the company hardly anything.  I didn’t even take mine.”

“Our numbers had been down due to the recession, so our manager bought a box of bacon band aids from a gag gift shop and told us whoever closed the most accounts that week would get the band aids.  I wasn’t too interested in working double time for a box of band aids.”

“It was the holidays and our manager told us we would get a reward at the next meeting.  It was a box of donuts, which we had at all the meetings, and we got to decorate miniature stockings with puff paint and hang them on the wall. I felt like I was in elementary school again.”

“They’ll have us pitch them on something that we really want and could use in our jobs, like how we might use an iPad. So we’ll work really hard and get really excited. But then they take the presentation and pitch it to others, and we never hear anything again, until a few weeks later when another department has the iPads.”

“They took away our vehicle stipends, but tried to play it off by rewarding us with theme dress-up days on Fridays. So now on Friday’s we have Hawaiian shirt day, or sports day.”

“Once we went out for a happy hour for good sales, which was fun.  But the manager was being kind of stingy.  It turns out he was trying to keep the happy hour bill low because he wanted to take some of the other staff members to the strip club and they wanted to buy drinks there.”

“We never had any rewards, but the owner of the business tried to incentivize us anyway with promising stuff to us we knew would never happen, like a trip to Hawaii, or remodeling our office.”

“We had a contest at work, with a cash prize, which was cool.  But when I won it, I had to take the money from my own budget.  So essentially I won the ability to take money from myself.”

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While every upcoming generation is regarded as flawed by their elders, it seems Gen Y is seen especially negatively. A recent article at In These Times focuses on whether Millennials are cursed. According to sources cited, “everyone born since the mid-1970’s” is “coddled, overexposed and overindulged”. Having grown up with reality TV, they want to be instantly famous. Paradoxically, they also “reflect a new sense of existential aloneness and a desperate need to be recognized”. They are, in other words, narcissistic and disconnected. Or perhaps, they are torn between narcissism and empathy. The jury is out.

A blogger (Valley Girl with a Brain) who defines the Millennials as those born between 1980 and 1995 lets her peers know that she watched 60 Minutes and learned that “Mr. Rogers lied” and they really “aren’t that special” and “there is no perfect job”. And she worries about whether her decision to go back to graduate school was a really special bad decision.

So are Millennials truly that much more narcissistic and disconnected than the rest of us were at that age?

For their answers, check out the original blog post here.

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