September 18th 2019: Organizations are about to be hit with a problem that could impact their very survival. Millennials, a generation leading the charge for a fairer society, and set to make up half of the U.S. workforce by 2020, have grown up during the recession. They choose value over loyalty, which has filtered down to their work habits. They constantly get approached for – and change – jobs, in a bid for more money and a better work/life balance. Nearly half of millennials plan to leave a position within two years, and – rightly – believe that business’ priorities should include enhancing employees’ lives and careers. Many are now in mid-senior level management positions and are becoming parents themselves. They want to be supported by their employers, but businesses are currently ill-equipped to deal with their parental leave, or to keep them engaged throughout it.
Recognizing this, global coaching consultancy Talking Talent is today releasing Talking Talent Online: a digital coaching platform that enables employers to support parents-to-be throughout their parental leave. It does so at three crucial stages: preparing for leave, preparing for return, and recently returned – supporting parents through a crucial transition to establish and maintain a sustainable and rewarding work-life balance. The digital coaching support helps businesses keep new parents and their managers engaged and successful during all stages of parental transitions, ultimately boosting performance, talent attraction, and retention.
The first offering of its kind, Talking Talent’s digital platform makes working parent coaching economical and scalable – as well as for working parents of all ages. It provides users with access to specialist coaches, 24 hours a day, Monday to Friday, even while on leave, and includes a guided checklist for each stage, as well as downloadable templates. It also assesses users’ ongoing confidence levels, automatically offering extra help when needed. The release follows successful trials by several blue-chip organizations.
The need for millennials to receive this level of organizational support is backed up by the demands of parents of this age range, particularly when compared to other generations. Talking Talent research has found that:
- 71% of 25-34-year olds say work pressures prevent them from being the parent they’d like to be.
- 77% of 25-34-year olds would have felt more engaged on return to work if they’d taken longer leave. Two-thirds of 25-34-year olds also felt that there was a significant gap between workplace messaging and what happens in reality.
Younger parents are generally more welcoming of professional help than their older counterparts. More than three-fifths (65%) of 25-34-year olds, compared to 34% of those aged 45–54, would value receiving specialist coaching on managing the transition to becoming a working parent. That’s because they worry that juggling work and kids will hold back their career – a feeling becoming more pronounced with each successive generation:
- Only one in 10 (10%) 45-54-year olds strongly agree that their careers slowed down after having kids.
- Among the 25-34-year olds , 59% believe their career slowed down after having a child.
Employers that ignore the needs of their staff – and fail to retain them as a result – will pay heftily for this: the average company in the United States spends about $4,000 to hire a new employee, and takes up to 52 days to fill a position.
Teresa Hopke, CEO of Talking Talent US, comments: “Younger parents, particularly millennials, are less torn than their predecessors when it comes to the double duties involved in being a working parent: they are less willing to absorb the sacrifices that were once believed necessary to have both children and a career. We’ve created Talking Talent Online to enable organizations to equip millennials – as well as all of their working parent employees – with parental leave support, as part of a blended coaching experience. With a growing proportion of millennials making up the average workforce, forward-thinking leaders must provide adequate support now – or face failing to retain employees.”
For more information on Talking Talent Online please visit: https://www.talking-talent.com/en-us/millennial-march. To request a demo, please get in touch, or email requestademo@talking-talent.com.
