Hear ye, hear ye, fellow Millennials: if you can score a job as a Millennial consultant, you might be able to rake in quite the pay day. According to an article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, Millennial consultants can make up to $20,000 — an hour. So what exactly are the burning questions that companies have about our generation that they cannot answer themselves? It's actually kind of sweet, guys: they want to know how to make us happy at work.
While my first answer to that is free cheese and wearing jeans in the office (can I have my $20,000 now, please?), of course, it's actually a lot more complicated than that. The reason companies like Oracle and Red Robin are interested in finding out just what makes Millennials bright and bushy-tailed at their nine-to-fives is that we have, unsurprisingly, become the largest generational demographic in the work place. We '80s and '90s babies are out in the real world, following our #dreams and starting our careers in droves. And now that we're the largest generation in the workforce, companies aren't just interested in learning what attracts us to a job — they're interested in learning what keeps us in it.
So yeah, $20,000 might seem like a pretty steep price for some advice on what makes Millennials happy. But when you consider the prevention of employee turnover, it actually makes a lot of sense. While the cost of losing and hiring a new employee is dependent on circumstances and varies across the board, there is no denying that it costs companies money — a study from the Center for American Progress found that replacing an employee in a mid-level position could cost 20 percent of their annual salary. So say an employee makes $60,000 and quits — boom, that company is out $12,000. And when you're a large enough company, and you're comprised of more Millennials than any other generation, a little bit of even harmless seeming turnover can add up fast.
Enter Millennial consultants, who come under many names — Millennial experts, Millennial analysts, Millennial strategists — basically an entire menagerie of people on LinkedIn who are responsible for keeping our offices #chill.
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So what is it that Millennials really want in a workplace? If we go by sitcom parodies of ~the Millennial workplace~, it's ping pong tables and free booze and a funny yet charming dude named Jim who is conveniently located just adjacent to your desk, falls in love with you, marries you on a boat, and bears a striking resemblance to John Krasinski. (Sorry, sorry. Side-tracked.) While all of these perks certainly aren't hurting, that's not what Millennial consultants are here to help companies with. Rather, according to the experts consulted in the WSJ article, it is factors like management visibility, flexibility, and the feeling of being individually valued that matter to Millennials most.
... Not to sidestep the importance of free food, of course.
In the end, it's not just employee turnover that this helps prevent — overall job satisfaction yields higher performance results from employees. For instance, companies that have instituted policies for unlimited personal and vacation days find that, ultimately, employees take fewer days off, and tend to be healthier overall. And common sense will tell you that happier, more content employees are going to yield more productive work overall (just ask Squidward and Spongebob). So yes, while the price tag on Millennial consulting may seem a little whoa, it's actually beneficial to us all. Fist bumps and flexible hours all around!
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