An increasingly advanced technological and digital landscape (especially mobile connectivity and social media) has brought new exciting possibilities for influencing people. A new generation of employees has appeared - the millennials. They seem to have different needs and responses than their older co-workers. Based on these new interrelated opportunities and challenges, the mckinsey.com website proposes some ideas on how to win over young employees.
New tools for influence: Greater relevance
Understanding and conviction helps employees to feel more involved in any change efforts. Modern digital communications enables us to personalise messages and deliver them directly to our frontline employees. Personalised communication is very important when it comes to major change efforts: it helps to cascade messages down from the CEO through middle management. When a global company executes a major change, it can deliver through its internal social-media platform different messages to different groups of employees. Communication then stays relevant.
Technology also identifies obstacles to change
There exist activity trackers – small devices, which provide an accurate picture of the activity of individuals. The truth is thus exposed and users can be held accountable for their performance. Online-polling tools make it easy to identify differences in how various groups of employees understand particular issues. This is useful since management often overestimates the impact its messages have on employees.
Motivation and improvement
Digital tools enable companies to show how certain steps (adoption of new software or a training programme) improve performance. Sharing of success stories on an intranet and displaying training certificates and badges on social-media platforms instil a sense of control and competence that stimulates the improvement efforts. Momentum of influence can be built and deployed for the needs of the organisation.
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