Just what exactly motivates you to work? According to the July 2019 FlexJobs survey, for 63% of millennials, the desire to travel is the primary reason.
This data comes from a survey of more than 1,600 millennials, which looks to find out flexible work behaviors among this demographic. The issue of flexible work is one that is extremely important for millennials. They want a work-life balance and more often than not it requires the ability to work from anywhere and anytime.
For small business owners understanding how millennials like to work is absolutely essential moving forward. As more of your workforce becomes millennials, accommodating how they like to work will attract more talent to your company.
The founder and CEO of Flexjobs, Sara Sutton explains this very point in the press release for the report. Sutton goes on to say, “With millennials such a dominant presence in the U.S. labor workforce, it’s critical that companies pay attention to the value millennials place on work flexibility and work-life balance, or they’ll risk losing out on that talent.”
Sutton adds millennials want the option of working from home, which is one of the many reasons they place a high value on workplace flexibility. Furthermore, they are willing to quit their job and give up important benefits if a company doesn’t offer work flexibility.
Why Millennials Work
In addition to the desire to travel, the reasons millennials work include paying for basic necessities (83%) saving for retirement (58%) and paying off debt (51%). But there are many factors that go into choosing the company they are willing to work for.
The number one factor is a work-life balance at 81%, which is higher than even salary at 79%. Even lower than that is healthcare which comes in at 41% followed by 401k benefits (35%), and paid maternity/paternity leave (18%).
When it comes to flexible work preference, 74% of the respondents want the ability to telecommute 100% of the time. A close second is a flexible schedule job at 73%, part-time at 43% and freelancing coming in last with 38%.
Generational Differences
There is a generational difference between millennials and Gen Xers regarding the issue of work flexibility and how much they value it.
Concerning the issue of quitting a job, millennials are more likely to quit than Gen Xers with a 71 to 66 percent difference. The number is also higher for millennials if it means giving up vacation time for a better schedule with 28 to 19 percent respectively.
Where Gen Xers excel is negotiating a flexible work schedule. According to this survey, they have a 61% success rate in negotiating this particular issue compared to 53% of millennials.
So, who is hiring these millennials? In addition to their feelings about flexible work schedule, the Flexjobs survey also compared a list of the best large workplaces for millennials.
Take a look at the top 25 companies which offer the options millennials are looking for below.
- Ultimate Software
- Hilton
- Salesforce
- Workday
- Edward Jones
- Red Hat
- Cisco
- HubSpot
- Zillow Group
- Stryker Corporation
- AbbVie
- Intuit Inc.
- Adobe
- Splunk
- American Fidelity Assurance Company
- Quicken Loans
- Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America
- Total Quality Logistics
- Atlassian
- NVIDIA
- American Express
- Kronos Incorporated
- SAP America Inc.
- Novo Nordisk Inc.
- BayCare Health System
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