10. A focus group with 30
millennials was held in
April of 2015. We started
our session with coffee and
conversation...
11. Facts about Millennials:
Millennials are digital addicts who want to do, and share,
everything online, without regard for personal or
professional boundaries. (SHRM 02/19/2015)
Millennials, unlike their older colleagues, can’t make a
decision without first inviting everyone to weigh in. (SHRM 02/19/2015)
Millennials depend on their parents and can’t find jobs.(Washington Post 08/30/2013)
Hello, my name is Jill Holt and I am the “Community Engagement Specialist” at Timberland for the past 2.5 years. In my role I organize and manage our volunteer and donation programs.
For my capstone, I have chosen to focus on the topic of “Effectively Engaging Millennials in Community Service”. Community Service for this project is specifically geared towards Timberland’s “Path of Service” program. Timberland’s Path of Service program provides employees with 40 paid hours a year during to perform community service.
Here’s a quick roadmap of our time together… (explain each bullet)
Millennials are defined as those being born between 1982-2004*, so currently they are 11-33 years old.
Millennials grew up in an electronics-filled and increasingly online and socially-networked world. They are the generation that has received the most marketing attention.
the most ethnically diverse generation, Millennials tend to be tolerant of difference.
Having been raised under the mantra "follow your dreams" and being told they were special, they tend to be confident. While largely a positive trait, the Millennial generation’s confidence has been argued to spill over into the realms of entitlement and narcissism. They are often seen as slightly more optimistic about the future of America than other generations -- despite the fact that they are the first generation since the Silent Generation that is expected to be less economically successful than their parents. *Howe and Strauss define the Millennial cohort as consisting of individuals born between 1982 and 2004.
So...who are millennials?
These guys….
These guys….
These guys.
and these gals...
NOT this gal, oh how I wish I was though….
These “millennials” represent our interns and full-time employees, this groups represents a wide range of our population. Holding roles in Sales, Marketing & PR, Training and Development, Product Development and much more.
I posed these “facts” about millennials and with time and feedback learned that these are not necessarily true. I mean how many of us are addicted to our phones? Guilty. Aren’t we all about collaboration? I think it applies to the whole workforce not just this group. Our workforce is comprised of ***% of millennials...seems to me they are working and from Instagram I can tell that no one is living with Mom & Dad, they have this created incredible community within themselves. For example, we have a beautiful lunch area we call the “Gorge”. Everyday I see a large group of 10-25 millennials eating lunch together, laughing, making plans and talking about work. It’s enviable as I see the “Gen Xers” trudging back to their desks with the lunch everyday.
We had a few laughs, dispelled some myths and jumped into some questions. My first questions was this... But first tell me...what do you think of service what comes to mind? (Whiteboard a few ideas).
Here are some of the words the group came up with. Do we see any resemblance? (expand here)
Next I checked in with one of our department goals, to have all new hires (not necessarily just millennials) take part in service within their first 90 days.
YES! Here are some of the places they served. What excites me is this shows the acceptance of our values and commitment to service. For clarification, a Pillar Event is held twice a year. Timberland shuts its doors and we go out and serve as a community. Serv-a-palooza is next week on September 17th!
Next I asked….What does service look like to you? How about the group...any thoughts? Service ideas?
This was their list. They want to be active, they want to be outside, they want to have connection with the organization they are serving with. They want to be personally connected instead of just “writing the check”.
The previous question brought up the subject of “service tees”. We give them out for significant milestones however, they’d love it if we gave them out all of the time. I asked further why this is so important.
Service tee shirts identify them as someone who cares and collaborates, it shows pride and teamwork and like our iconic yellow boot, a Timberland service tee is a status symbol. We are green and good. and...Instagram #didyouseeme I want to be part of that!
Service is great, we’d all like to be giving more of our time. When I asked the group what keeps them from participating in service. It’s TIME. Some of their solutions to the time crunch included: schedule service events with their managers input so it is part of their work plan, large group service events or on the flip side regularly occurring events where they can serve individually or with a friend so they can plan it into their schedule. We’ve tried their suggestions and it’s working….what I am excited about is this is the next generation of managers so this will be part of their culture and thinking.
This group was raised with service as part of their daily lives, whether it was for school and college acceptance or joining along with family and friends as they adopted the idea. Service and sustainability are part of their vocabulary, not necessarily new buzz words
So we spent about an hour together talking about service, how it looks to them, what they’ve done, what they are hoping to do and we all left with some ideas to put to use and really enjoyed “bridging the gap” and making a connection. Serv-a-palooza was upcoming and this presentation so I had the opportunity to do some follow-up from the past 4.5 months. I sent out a quick eight question survey to keep the conversation going. The questions were targeted to see if we had engaged any new millennials since our time together and viola….YES. 100% participation in service from those polled. 50% of the group have also signed up to be Team Leads for SAP next week and more would have if they just had, yes, you guessed it. Time.
In closing: we've determined that the “coffee chats” are a success and I have been asked to lead them twice yearly.
communication via our social media platforms maximizes participation managers are interested in how best to plan service with their groups from our conversations and collaborate with planning I have an opportunity to share what I have learned about millienials with a conversation with local businesses and honestly, I’ve made some great new friends in the building and now have new resources for upcoming projects This project in my opinion has been a win, win, win!
Thank you for your time...do you have any questions or comments for me?
