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Why Millennials Are Ending The 9 To 5

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The 9 to 5 job may soon be a relic of the past, if Millennials have their way. A slow climb in a company was once the accepted career path. However, today the experiences of  men and women starting their careers are closer to juggling multiple positions than steady growth.

Freelancing and self-employment are on the rise. Meanwhile, 60% of Millennials are leaving their companies in less than three years. With 87% of companies reporting a cost of between $15,000 and $25,000 to replace each lost Millennial employee, industries need to start paying attention to structural changes. Reports and studies seem to indicate three roots to Millennials’ discontent and the resulting upheaval: the drives for flexibility, purposeful labor and economic security.

A recent Millennial Branding report found 45% of Millennials will choose workplace flexibility over pay.  Dori Albert, crowdscourcing practice manager at Lionbridge Technologies Inc., stated that Millennials helped create a “new nature of work,” with increasing reliance on the gig economy and freelancing. Lionbridge began as a translation focused site, but has expanded to provide crowdsourced employees to a wide range of industries including companies such as Nokia , Microsoft and Expedia .

sLionbridge's 100,000 crowd worker are united by their drive for flexible labor. This includes stay-at-home mothers, retirees and Millennials, who make up 53% of crowd workers. “A generational change is occurring,” said Albert, who believes crowdsourcing to be key for Millennials seeking employment on their own terms.

The second feature Millennials are seeking  is work with a greater purpose. Millennials have been pegged as a generation committed to change. 72% of students, as opposed to 53% of workers, consider having “a job where I can make an impact” to be very important or essential to their happiness. Social entrepreneurship has exploded in the last ten years, going from an undefined phrase to a program offered at more than 30 business schools . Outside of making meaningful change in their community, Millennials are seeking meaningful connections at work – 71% want their coworkers to be their “second family.”

The search for these qualities results, according to Millennial Branding’s founder Dan Schawbel, to the swift turn over for Millennial employees. The same survey that found that 60% of Millennials left their company in less than three years discovered that the primary indicator of whether Millennials stay at a company is if there is a “good cultural fit.” While the term is nebulous, Millennials increasingly require some aspect of personal fulfillment from their jobs, and are willing to walk if they do not find it.

The final piece of the puzzle is economic concerns. Much of the discussion of Millennials has downplayed the economic necessity of career decisions, a reductive position that few are able to afford. Dori Alberts reported that most Lionbridge crowd workers were employed with the company as a second job. Websites that allow for flexible labor are in high demand. Millennials don't just value flexible labor - they need it to make ends meet.

Millennials entered the job market in the wake of the recession. Unemployment rates for 20-to 24-year olds currently hover around 13%. Millennials are conditioned to expect economic disruption, and have thus become risk adverse. Outside of economic caution, rates of alcohol use, drug use and sexual activity have declined. Thus, job turn over and exploration of more flexible labor sources reveal Millennials' fear of putting all their (career) eggs in one basket.

The question then becomes: how can employers shift to better fit these core needs of Millennials? The quick turn over of Millennial workers is costing employers hundreds of thousands of dollars. Perhaps employers need to embrace the changing workplace, with increased freelancing, crowdsourcing and flexible hours. In this manner, companies can create a workplace where taking on different roles and jobs fulfill different aspects of Millennial’s career requirements. This generations' priorities are not radically different than those of earlier generations - they are just attempting to meet their needs in different ways.

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