Retaining Millennials: Strategies for Keeping New Professionals After the Initial Excitement of the Recruitment Process is Over

Millennials are bringing fresh new ideas and tremendous expertise into the library workplace, but retaining them over the long term can be challenging. This talented new generation of workers enters with exceptionally high expectations for work-life balance, constant feedback and recognition, open communication and rapid-fire career advancement. When the organization disappoints them, they leave – resulting in substantial costs and disruption to the workplace. Truly engaging Millennials in the workplace involves some give and take on both sides. Success requires a willingness to set aside generational biases and popular press stereotypes – to see the workplace (and the world) from a new perspective. Millennials can and will mature into their roles, but they will never become mirror images of the generations that came before them. Libraries need to change outmoded human resource strategies and adopt new, more progressive approaches to workplace design and communication if they hope to win over this particular cohort of workers. The author cautions against establishing targeted programs for millennial workers to the exclusion of others. The best solutions respond to the needs of this new, rapidly growing generation of employees, but in ways that support the entire workforce.