¿Which are the Best Places to Work for Millennials?

The Center for Generational Kinetics released its first annual list of The Best Places to Work for Millennials, a list that also offers new insights into what it takes to recruit and retain top Millennial performers.

To find the best places to work for Millennials, The Center for Generational Kinetics partnered with the workplace excellence research firm Best Companies Group (BCG), which manages over 50 “Best Places to Work” programs around the globe. BCG analyzed data from the more than 4,000 U.S. organizations that participated in its various programs. BCG included policy and benefit offerings from the employer questionnaires, as well as employee engagement data from the more than 500,000 employee surveys conducted in the last 12 months.

In identifying the top 75 best employers for Millennials, the study revealed key attributes that set Millennial-friendly workplaces apart, including:

• Allowing employees to enroll in healthcare coverage the very first day of work. A whopping 27 percent of the “Best Places to Work for Millennials” offer coverage starting the first day of work, versus just an average of 10 percent at organizations that do not receive this type of workplace greatness recognition.
• Allowing paid time off for community service. Eighty-one percent of the “Best Places to Work for Millennials” offer paid time off for volunteer work compared to just 53 percent of companies that did not make the list.
• Offering flextime. Seventy-three percent of “Best Places to Work for Millennials” offer flextime or compressed workweeks as a standard practice versus 46 percent of non-list organizations.
• The best Millennial workplaces also offer better family-friendly policies including paid parental leave, lactation facilities for nursing mothers and flexible hours for doctors’ visits and school events.

Employees at workplaces that made the “Best Places to Work for Millennials” reported higher levels of satisfaction in company leadership and the opportunity for career advancement. The data also revealed that “feeling valued,” “making progress at work” and “liking the type of work they do” all have a significant impact on the emotional connection, or engagement, Millennials have with their employers.

“Knowing what motivates Millennials to want to stay at a job has never been more important,” said best-selling author and Millennial researcher Jason Dorsey of The Center for Generational Kinetics. “A key segment of the Millennial generation is proving to be highly valuable to employers and defying stereotypes about their generation.”

“Creating a culture that welcomes, mentors and motivates Millennials has been a critical component of success for our firm,” commented Paul Blanco, managing partner, Barnum Financial Group, an office of MetLife, part of the MetLife Premier Client Group and sponsor of the Center’s research. “In our experience, many in this generation have an entrepreneurial spirit that drives innovation and positive change.”

The “Best Places to Work for Millennials” list is available at BestPlacesToWorkMillennials.com.