Millennial Nomads, and how it could affect retaining employees…

According to a survey conducted by AfterCollege networking site, 59% of current job seekers look for a flexible work schedule from a prospective employer, while 70% said they’re more likely to accept a job if there’s the option to work from home at least one day a week. Both of these rank second to work/life balance. So, how is the Millennial Nomad life style possibly affecting your work culture?

A Millennial Nomad, someone who sees themselves as an explorer, a thinker, a person who embodies being wanderlust and doesn’t necessarily have one single place they call home. It’s the stories you read about where a person buys a van, redoes it, and then travels the country side. But it’s also people who, in their workplace, have the option to work remotely, so they do. According to a survey conducted by AfterCollege networking site, 59% of current job seekers look for a flexible work schedule from a prospective employer, while 70% said they’re more likely to accept a job if there’s the option to work from home at least one day a week. Both of these rank second to work/life balance.

Now, as more and more Millennials ditch the corporate 9-5 for this nomadic lifestyle, other Millennials have taken notice and built companies around helping more people become Millennial or Digital Nomads. Take for instance companies such as WiFly Nomads or The Remote Experience. These are two, of many, companies that give you the option to work remotely from a chosen destination with 20 or so other like-minded individuals. You can take your passion to travel, skip the van living, and work remotely from some paradise halfway around the world. And if your work doesn’t offer remote work, well, they’ll help you find a job that does! It’s like studying abroad in college, but now you’re studying abroad for work.

And Baby Boomers, I know what you’re probably thinking, this is just an excuse for the younger generation to get out of work. But, that’s not the case. Millennials want to work, but they see the value in having the option for more “bleisure” (business and leisure) travel. In fact, per a study done by Expedia, 62% of Millennials are more comfortable mixing business with pleasure, compared to 37% for the Baby Boomers.

So, what could this possibly mean for your organization and retaining employees? Well, according to a recent survey done by LinkedIn, Millennials will jump jobs four times in their first decade out of college. That’s nearly double the bouncing around the generation before them did. So now think about this, if you’re not offering flexible work schedules and there’s companies out there systematically helping Millennials find remote work opportunities, what’s keeping them at your organization? That one extra day off you give them off around the Holidays? Probably not. And I’m not saying you need to go and create these elaborate work abroad programs, even though there’s companies currently doing so, but what I am saying is it might be time to rethink that 9-5, Monday through Friday working style within your own organization, especially as Millennials and Gen Xer’s start to take over the workforce.

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