How to Design an Attractive Benefits Package for Millennials

With graduates passing on more graduate jobs than ever, it’s critical to design a benefits package that will entice the best millennials to your business.

Today’s post is from Matt Arnerich of graduate jobs specialists Inspiring Interns.

For companies keen on attracting graduates into junior roles, there’s more competition than ever. Especially with the top talent supposedly turning down over 1000 graduate jobs in 2015 alone.

As a result, it’s key that employers understand this new generation of graduates, and make sure the graduate jobs they offer are supplemented with relevant, enticing perks.

It’s not about the money

It’s becoming increasingly clear that there’s a shift in focus away from placing an importance on wealth alone for millennials. A 2008 survey conducted on 2,500 people born between the years 1982 and 2002 found that money ranked as low as 7^th in terms of importance for their career. Harvard Business Review’s survey on ‘What millennials want’ was in agreement: family life, personal growth, education, health and friendship all came before a desire for wealth.

For a group that will represent nearly 40% of the working population by 2020, these priorities need to be considered by companies in order to continue to attract and retain the best talent and, in turn, continue to grow. The average graduate today will have an estimated 10 jobs before they turn 38. If they are not satisfied, they move on. You need to know how to build your benefits package to attract the best candidates and to ensure that you can retain them.

Work – Life Balance

Your benefits package needs to show that ‘work’ does not have to be a separate entity to ‘life’. The 2008 survey by Talentsmoothie emphasised how the millennial generation has grown up with their parents working long hours in stressful jobs that they didn’t enjoy. Their work was considered to be the time spent in the office and their ‘life’ the limited time away from it. In reaction to this, the millennial generation are attracted to positions that coincide with their life goals (family, education, health, friendship, travel) – rather than coexist with them.

This means that benefits such as flexible hours, travel allowance, gym memberships, volunteer programs, sports teams and family leave are all useful to pull in the top talent. Large companies like Procter & Gamble offer up to a year of family leave to look after young children or elderly parents, while law firm Baker and McKenzie offer month long sabbaticals for travel on the completion of their training scheme.

Many large companies are taking it even further. Huge multinationals such as Netflix and Virgin have moved to unlimited paid vacation leave for all employees. These kind of perks are hugely enticing to millennials, precisely because they address this troublesome work-life balance. The caveat to these deals is often that employees can holiday when they like provided they’ve completed their work, which is attractive to the reward-based culture that attracts young graduates.

These are companies that can afford to pay the big salaries but still notice the need to supplement them. This is because they have noticed that benefits are not only key to attracting talent, but to ensuring retention and longevity of employment as well.

Too much?

One of the main worries potential employers misunderstand about these kind of perks is that they see it as counterproductive. How does anyone do any work? The truth is, this kind of life balance and office culture only works if employees understand that it is a ‘work hard, play hard’ environment. That’s why the unlimited paid leave concept is attractive. It couples an attractive perk with a hard working culture pay off that benefits the business.

More importantly, if the benefits are in place, you will attract more candidates and will therefore have more choice to ensure that the candidates you employ are buying into this identity and culture, and working hard along the way. Also, you can guarantee that you’re buying into the most talented generation Y has to offer!

– Matt Arnerich is the Content Writer over at graduate recruitment agency Inspiring Interns. He writes about everything graduate recruitment, including advice for both graduates and employers. If you’re looking to hire a graduate, check out their innovative Video CVs.

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