Meetings for Millennials – How to Make It a Perfect Match

Millennials, Millies.. <3 The young adults born between the 1980s and 2000 are here to twist and change the way we work, how things are done, and how we communicate. Your workplace most likely has many millennial employees too? You need to keep things interesting for them in order to retain fresh talent! Meetings are a big part of work-life. Today, we are sharing how to make meetings for millennials a perfect match, swipe right 😉

Millennials represent over a quarter of the population in the US and many other countries

Why care about adapting workplaces for millennials, why consider millennials when planning your meetings? If you don’t adapt, your competitors will, and before you know, all the new doers and makers are taken. When millennials understand the value of their meetings, they are more likely to invest their time and energy into doing the job. Holds true for anyone really? If your meeting is as empty of value as politician’s promises, well it won’t work out well for you – #sorrynotsorry. Gotta #workworkwork and learn to attract your audience from all ages and backgrounds.

Meetings for Millennials need to create value – What’s your value proposition?

Meetings for millennial_HUONE

Photo credits

If you fail to communicate the upcoming meeting’s goal, and why the person’s attendance is needed, your millennial colleagues will struggle to find motivation. Therefore, meetings for millennials need to have a clear value proposition. Why is this meeting organised? What’s the purpose? What will the attendees get out of it?

Simple tips to create more value for meetings

  • Don’t lecture. Millennials want to contribute and they get bored quickly. Have you tried out breakout sessions? Creating breaks during your meetings, having one-on-one deep dive moments, a proper feedback session at the end of your meeting, as well as reflection sessions? Customise your meetings based on your attendees!
  • Try out walking meetings. Traditional and lengthy sit-down meetings don’t go well with energetic fast-paced millennials. Make the moment meaningful and give it purpose. Create value for the millennial to be in the moment.
  • Millennials appreciate team spirit. For your next meeting, could you incorporate an activity to it? Organise a team cocktail school or a charity run race? Or perhaps a marathon screening of a new Game of Thrones, Mindhunter, or Planet Earth series?
  • Millennials are constantly looking to improve, learn and develop. They want to feel excited, see different career paths options, build their network and connections.

Millennials are likely to spend 2-3 years in a company, and then hop on to a different organization.

  • How about choose mentors for millennials and give each pair a break during the day to discuss ambitions, meeting goals and work-life? If you make meetings for millennials meaningful, they are more likely to stay and develop their career with you. Millennials respect experience and valuable advice. Therefore, a one-on-one session feels personal. It makes millennials feel that they are given attention, more direction and that their personal interests are taken seriously. This is also a good chance to get to know people in the organization better!
  • Always have the meeting with a real purpose, and don’t repeat the same meeting. It’s boooring!

How can you create an attractive environment for meetings for Millennials?

Millennials are very on-point and expect value for their time spent, results, and constant learning and development. Equally, they appreciate small details, inspiring spaces and an environment that supports team bonding.

Meeting environment that speaks to Millennials:

  • Shake things up a little bit: why not organise meetings for millennials outside the usual office space? Change of environment splurges creativity in everyone and makes the day feel a bit more special. This gives a different kind of focus and drive to the topic! Better meetings start with stimulative spaces, time to leave the home office and have an adventure elsewhere!
  • Take food into consideration. Don’t be afraid to try out new food trends, have plenty of healthy and environmental options available, and respect different diets and food regimes. Avoid lengthy and boring sit down dinners where you are stuck with the people on your table the whole night. Cocktail parties or more casual dinners do the magic!
  • Do note that your attendees might not drive when choosing your meeting environment: consider choosing venues that are central and accessible by public transport.

Consider the social sharing aspect of meetings for Millennials:

Millennials consider themselves creators, and are very engaged with content, with 75% of millennials sharing on social channels.

  • Millennials love to share! Time to benefit from this! Create a proper communication circus for your big meeting day, send out regular reminders and make sure on the day itself, there are good quotes, visual content, speeches and videos that millennials are inspired to share on their social channels. Make sure there are visual details and a visual environment, that catch the eye. Millennials want to feel like they belong to a group or to a community. Likewise, sharing it with their network is part of the lifestyle. This is a chance for your company to have good PR and visibility in the channels of like-minded young professional adults, and it’s the public image that attracts talent.
  • Lastly, just avoid an environment of lengthy conversations that don’t lead to any clear action points or decisions. Millennials expect to see progress, so keep everyone on track and on point in the meeting.

Millennials and the most obvious: Tech. How to incorporate tech in your meetings for Millennials?

Just take the metro or subway anywhere, and notice that pretty much everyone is on their smartphones. Millennials are heavy users of tech and they are used to instant messaging, quick changes, and immediate results.

To accommodate your meeting to the tech-savvy Millennials, consider these:

  • Make sure your meeting space has enough power points and USB charging stations. There’s nothing more annoying than having to fight to charge your devices, or to struggle with adapter hell!
  • Wifi, wifi, wifi. It has to be available without asking, with wifi network and password visually available, and the network connection has to be high speed. Honestly, it’s a big deal breaker if files take too long to download over a slow network. 
  • Consider creating polls in your meetings where participants can vote on their device, and the results will appear immediately on the screen? It’s pretty fascinating! Millennials love to take part in things, to contribute, and to see the results quickly. There are lots of apps available online, give it a go.
  • Millennials value face-to-face meetings over video calls but make sure your meetings have an option to call in as millennials like flexible working hours and freedom. Your meeting room will need proper A/V and V/C set up, so book your space accordingly.

25% of millennials spend an average of five hours a day on their phone

  • What happens after your meeting, workshop or training? Follow up emails, sharing of files, and so on, right? Have you tried sharing the content over WhatsApp, Telegram or Slack, or other similar instant messaging apps? Share your meeting material on a chatgroup so it’s easily accessible by phone, and millennials can read through the material on their commute home or to work.

Photo credits

In your meetings for millennials, always remember to listen to them! There are a lot of teachings and new fresh perspectives that you can learn and benefit from too. Maybe you really should try to accommodate and change your behaviour too?

What Are the Benefits of Face-to-Face Meetings?