Less than ten years ago, new marketing and communications employees were taught to keep their overeager aspirations in check and learn at the feet of seasoned masters. There was a pay-your-dues pecking order that implied that younger employees offered little that was not already known or assumed in a mature discipline. Like children, new employees were to be seen and not heard.
Lucky for Millennials, digital has destroyed this paradigm.
The rapid pace of digital development and the Millennial employees’ greater comfort with all things digital now means Millennials deserve a seat alongside seasoned executives if companies hope to truly compete and embrace the digital market. For once, younger employees have stock to trade.
This isn’t to say Millennials have the upper hand. Not at all. While they may have an intuitive and experiential understanding of tactics, platforms, and innovation they are often lacking in bigger picture perspective of department, company, and business goals and strategies that comes from experience and learning. This is where a new, symbiotic relationship comes into play. Millennials serve as the eyes and ears of all that is digitally new while management serves as the minds and developers of integrated strategy.
Prior to working in digital marketing, I learned to embrace a similar inclusive approach in the contemporary music industry salt mines. I realized early on (as a new employee who had a better pulse on music and cultural trends than my managers) and later as a seasoned marketing and product-line executive (who was distracted by life and not content being Peter Pan) that to ignore the younger, more in-the-know-about-the-culture junior employee was to cut my nose off to spite my face. That once I let go of ego, fear, and entitlement and allowed younger employees into the decision matrix, my job not only got easier but the results got better.
So make real room at the table. Keep an open door. Ask Millennials for brutally honest advice and feedback about your digital initiatives. Listen closely and don’t patronize them. Lower your guard. And admit they often know more than you do about digital culture and trends. Not only will you learn more along the way, but the entire team and company will be the better for it.
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“That once I let go of ego, fear, and entitlement and allowed younger employees into the decision matrix, my job not only got easier but the results got better.”
Tremendous insight, Gerard. Well said through the entire article. And that’s no faux.
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