Millennials don’t want new cars, furniture, or artwork. Why do you think this is?
Think about your best times at work.
Does it ever revolve around kicking back on your chair and looking at your bank statement?
Not usually, unless your Scrooge McDuck.
It revolves around the positive experience that were created when working on a difficult project and finding a unique solution or getting together with your your co-workers after work or other experiences that make you happy.
Think about the last job you had. Do you remember the experiences or how much money you made each day?
Experiences are the glue that connects us.
Are you creating positive experiences for your younger workforce?
Experiences that help them build relationships and feel a sense of pride in their work?
Millennials don’t want to spend their money on experiences, which makes sense. Experiences create more happiness because they teach us versus just being another thing in our lives.
The more I’ve led workshops and coached leaders in the workplace the more I know in my bones that we need to create more positive experiences at work. We need to feel like our work matters. That our time isn’t being wasted.
I decided to create the Work Happy Now Emergency Kit - Break in case of stress overload. Leaders can bring a more positive experiences into the workplace and improve engagement if they have help.
Here is the one of the module in the Work Happy Now Emergency Kit:
Create Mentorship Program
Create cross pollination of ideas by creating a mentorship program. Gather everyone in a room. Put people’s names in hat. Make sure to pair people who were unable to come. Each pairing must be random to help people who don’t know each other that well to connect. Have the pairs of employees get together and ask themselves the first session's questions.
At the end of each session have them set-up next week’s call for 30 minutes. They will set-up meetings each week until the end of the month. Each person will be given 15 minutes to talk at each session. They must bring a goal/project that they are working on and could use guidance to improve the results. You should encourage people to create a project instead of a goal. It becomes more of an adventure instead of something they have to reach and if they don’t, they feel like a failure.
The first session is a discovery session for them to build a rapport with each other. The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th session is meant to help them support each other’s progress.
Virtual Version
Split people into groups 10 - 20, depending on the capacity of the video conferencing software that you use. Even numbers are important to pairing people up. Put everyone’s name in excel sheet and people pick number. They will set-up meetings each week over the phone until the end of the month. Each person will be given 15 minutes to talk at each session.
Questions to ask each other: (first session)
- What are your top 3 favorite movies?
- What piece of advice has been most important to growing your career?
- What skill do you wish you had?
- Who do you look up to as you started your career? How about now?
- How can I help you accomplish your goal/project by the end of the month?
Questions to ask in mentorship sessions 2-4:
- What is going well with your goal/project?
- What can be improved?
Review Questions:
- How did people respond to mentorship program? (Did they like the results? Did they participate?)
- What could be improved about the program when you run it again?
- Do you think it helped the team build stronger relationships?
- What were the benefits that you noticed to running this program?
This is just a sample of the Work Happy Now Emergency Kit - Break in case of stressed out employees to help you improve your team’s engagement and communication. It gives you 6 modules to try out with your team or yourself. It has 3 main sections - 2 Team building ideas, 2 Team games, and 2 Individual Practices you can incorporate each month to help reduce overwhelm and build a stronger team.