Capitalizing on Team Spirit
October 15, 2011One of the best things about Millennials from an organizational perspective is their facility with working in teams. From their earliest years members of the Millennial generation have worked on projects in school, joined soccer leagues, participated in clubs, and networked through a variety of service organizations. As a general rule, Millennials are comfortable in group settings.
As an organization that can be great news. Researchers have found new hires are positively influenced by communication designed to integrate them into the organization (Barge & Schlueter, 2004; Cooper-Thomas, & Anderson, 2005). Successful acculturation enhances performance and retention and decreases turnover (Kowtha, 2008). Organizational psychology researchers point out that organizational support and integration into social networks play a larger role in retaining volunteers than training (Hidalgo & Moreno, 2009). If you want to decrease turnover and increase productivity, your organization needs to consciously try to help new employees make a significant connection to other members of the organization. You can train them all you want, but if you don’t want to waste dollars retraining their replacement a few months down the road – get them in a group and get them to plug into your organization’s networks.
