Business has been transformed by the Internet: it stands to reason that employment practices should change accordingly. But many companies still rigidly conform to a 20th Century model. Millennials are here to stay. They’ve been formed by their experience growing up in a digital world and, while businesses have adapted to sell to the next generation, are they doing enough to get the best out of their millennial employees?

“What Millennials Want in the Workplace” is the title of the talk Caroline McEnery gave at The eCommerce Summit in Tralee recently. Caroline runs The HR Suite, a HR consultancy business with offices in Dublin and Kerry, working in the areas of Human Resource Management; Employment Law; Training and Recruitment.

“If you want to attract amazing talent, you’ve got to get into tune with what is it that’s going to attract them, what’s going to motivate them, what’s going to retain them. So the worker of the past who might have been willing to work for 20 days holidays and normal working hours and a more structured work environment is long gone. People now want a lot more autonomy. They want control over their working hours. They either want to start late, work longer days, have more time off. They want sabbaticals; they want time to travel; work-life balance is really important to them. And the brilliant thing about that is: if you, as an employer, tune in to what their looking for, you’ve got a big edge because you’re going to have people who are very motivated. When they’re at work they’re going to be brilliant and committed and ultimately you’re going to help retain them as well.”

Caroline views the emergence of remote working, in particular, as a productivity booster, and a win-win for both businesses and their staff.

This is the third in a series of videos Blacknight recorded at The eCommerce Summit 2019, which we also sponsored. We will share more insights from the speakers over the coming months. Subscribe to this blog and you won’t miss any of it – and you should sign up for our monthly newsletter as well (our Christmas email goes out tomorrow).

Tickets for The eCommerce Summit 2020 are already on sale.

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