You’ve probably heard or may have personally experienced this — you hire a millennial, and then a day or a month after, he/she resigns from your company without a word.
Despite the seemingly bad rep, you continue to hire a millennial because a lot of them are already in the workforce, and still a lot are looking for work.
Thomas Mirasol, COO and general manager of Philippine property giant Federal Land, Inc., offers some insights on why millennials should be embraced for who they are and how can they change the world for the better if their youthful and idealistic energy is harnessed and guided well.
In his recent interview with the online real estate marketplace Lamudi.com.ph, Mirasol – who has 30 years’ experience in real estate with a few of Asia Pacific’s best performing billion-dollar publicly listed companies – shares his thoughts on why millennials should be warmly welcomed by companies seeking innovation and growth.
1. MILLENNIALS ARE THE NEW REALITY NORM
In the Philippines, there are 11 million millennials—roughly defined as those born between the early 80’s to the early 2000’s—and the up-and-coming Gen Z workforce who were born from the early 2000’s.
Mirasol said ‘millennials in the workforce’ is a reality.
“Our team is actually changing. A lot of people we are getting right now by default—they have to be millennials because they are joining the work force,” Mirasol said.
According to the July 2019 survey of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), of the 73 million Filipinos in the working force, 5.9 million are unemployed and 78.7 percent of them are from age 15 years to 37 years old which is within the age bracket of millennials and late millennials.
2. MILLENNIALS HAVE A HISTORY OF CHANGING THE WORLD
Mirasol, who has been giving career development talks to organizations and universities, like the Asian Institute of Management where he is an alumnus of, said the very nature of millennials makes them a catalyst and accelerator of positive change.
“If you look back far into history, you will see that Alexander the Great was winning wars when he was 20. Joan of Arc was leading an army at 17. They changed the world because they were reckless, because they were brash,” Mirasol, who enjoys human psychology and behavioral economics, said.
“Every generation needs its “crazy” people — people who would push the boundaries, those who would push the status quo. I’m looking for these people,” he added.
3. MILLENNIALS CAN HELP YOU BETTER FORECAST FUTURE TRENDS
“The oldest millennials are in their mid-30s, they have been in the market for the past years. The next generation is the Gen Z. What do they like?”
Lamudi and Moneymax.ph studied millennials last year. Results show that while other generations prefer to own a house, millennials want condominium units for convenience and round-the-clock security with other amenities like gym, swimming pool and function rooms.
Instead of being tied down to one job, they would rather rent than own a property closer to their jobs or accessible to public transportation. And they don’t mind sharing expenses with flatmates.
4. MILLENNIALS BOOST YOUR DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP SKILLS
Mirasol said dealing with millennial workers takes some adjustments.
It also helps, the property expert said, to present them options rather than impose to them your set of values and standards.
“The best that I can do is to give them the best knowledge as I can. Hopefully it will serve them well for a few years,” he said.
Operationally, that would mean exercising democratic leadership to his millennials staff.
“I want to make sure they feel they are spending their time doing something useful. The only way to do that is to give them voice in the decisions that we are making.
“I think assuming that a young person can’t have great ideas is a huge mistake. So that’s how I deal with it,” he said.
By doing so, it is also taking the courage to listen to discordant voices.
5. MILLENNIALS CAN PROVIDE NEW AND CREATIVE IDEAS
“My personal policy — and this is this is not a new thing — is radical honesty. I encourage people to speak their mind. Whether they agree with me or agree with their peers. The worst thing to do is to stifle creativity, use rank to confront things,” he said.
“It is a given: People make mistakes. Organizations make mistakes.
And if you are bold enough to try something, you make more mistakes than others.
“But you need to be able to calculate the mistakes before it happens. If you are doing something new, this may or may not work,” he added.
By opening the line of communications—either formally or informally—he said it would encourage a working relationship that “doesn’t have to be scary.”
“At the end of the day, there are certain decisions that I have to make. I will balance things out, weigh and come up with the best decision which is customer first, the team, then the company,” Mirasol added.
It worries him though that this heavily social media connected generation may think that all the social media posts are real.
Nonetheless, he keeps his faith on the millennial generation.
“Undoubtedly, the next generation will come up with amazing ideas. Something that my generation never thought of. I’m sure we will all be impressed,” he said.
