Guest Post: 4 Strategies for Retaining Gen Y Women by Selena Rezvani

One of Tolero Solutions philosophies is that of collaboration. With that philosophy in mind, we are honored to share with you our newest guest post from our colleague and expert on women in the workplace, Selena Rezvani. Selena's goal is to propel more women into the top echelons of businesses — an objective she achieves through her writing, coaching, and speaking engagements. Selena wrote her debut book, The Next Generation of Women Leaders: What You Need to Lead but Won’t Learn in Business School (Praeger, 2009) while pursuing her MBA at Johns Hopkins University, where she graduated first in her class. Selena also has an MSW from New York University. For more on Selena, visit: www.nextgenwomen.com.

In this post, Selena shares the four strategies for retaining Gen Y, an ever growing part of the current workforce. Valuable and informative advice!

4 Strategies for Retaining Gen Y Women! 

Gen Y women present one of the most viable pipelines of talent, and yet many companies are missing the boat in engaging this group.  Gen Y women are better educated than any cohort that have come before them, are graduating with the majority of advanced and bachelors degrees, and according to a Families and Work Institute survey, have a hunger for jobs with responsibility.   

If being well-credentialed and ambitious aren’t enough, companies have another reason to care about this group.  They are likely to have children when they hit the age range of 25-30 years old, off-ramping from the work world and taking their institutional knowledge with them. 

A well known fact, work flexibility is more important to Gen Y than any other generation.  And for new mothers, a little flexibility on the part of the employer can engender loyalty and translate to less turnover.  Consider Aetna’s story.  When the company increased the length of its maternity leave, retention of new mothers increased from 77% to 91%, according to a report by The Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR).

Not everyone’s listening though.  An example of a field that’s doing a poor job of engaging young women is law.  Here’s a world where face time and billable hours are valued more than results, a concept that Gen Yers find ridiculous.  Career paths in law are extremely limited, and there is only one brass ring to aspire to: partner.  What’s more, according to a Rutgers study, the number one reason that women lawyers surveyed left firms was an “unsupportive work environment.”  Many firms that do extend work/life offerings to employees haven’t managed to make it part of the culture, so people still feel a stigma attached to using such benefits.  The data says it all: according to Catalyst, while 1 in 8 women lawyers work part-time, only 1 in 50 men lawyers do.

What can companies do to ward against losing young female talent? 

Implement Rotational Leadership Programs

Numerous employers of choice have long promoted leadership programs that involve intensive rotation.  Many look for high-potential employees who can fill leadership roles in the future.  Implementing a rotational program gives young women exposure to the company, its different functions, and most important, a broad array of people.  Given that most girls and young women don’t learn about leadership topics, the exposure to so many functional areas can only serve to strengthen a young woman's career.  Companies that offer diverse experiences not only guard against employee boredom, they show a commitment and investment to their new employees right off the bat.

Value Results, not Hours

Within many companies, you can’t have a challenging role that also allows you to have a personal life.  A critical imperative for companies who want to hold on to Gen Y is to deliver engaging work while allowing a woman to have boundaries.  Since Gen Y believes strongly in an anytime/anywhere work model (as long as I meet my targets), many companies can take a page from Best Buy’s book.  The electronics leader has implemented a Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) where output is measured rather than hours and facetime.  This is particularly important for working mothers, who simply cannot compete with the amount of facetime men can put in on the job.

Teach Them to Say No
Many of us forget that we can say no to projects.  Encourage Gen Y women to look for value-adding activities and say no to others.  Value-adding activities allow them to be visible across the organization, have a strong tie to the organization’s strategy or bottom line, and allow young women to partner with those in other departments.  Encouraging a culture where you’re allowed to have preferences, and act on those preferences, goes a long way with Gen Y women.   

Mix Up Work Formats
The current corporate business model sends the message that “you need to conform to us, we won’t conform to you.”  And yet, a major motivator for Gen Y is to have cafeteria-style choices in terms of work format and benefits.  Rather than thinking only in black and white, consider the gray area.  When offering mothers maternity leave, allow for fade-in reentry programs that allow women to slowly build back up to their original hours. When offering healthcare benefits, encourage Gen Yers to choose where their dollars are spent.  This generation has grown up with incredible levels of customization and naturally expects choice at work. 

Regardless of generation, we know that a one size fits all approach doesn’t work.  Retention and engagement aren’t about requiring that people fit a mold, they’re about meeting people where they are.