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Millennials’ dissatisfaction with their prospects for leadership development at their current organizations is among the factors driving them to pursue growth opportunities elsewhere, according to the results of a Deloitte Global survey.

As millennials comprise ever-larger proportions of the workforce, IT leaders struggling with an ongoing talent scarcity may face even more difficulty recruiting and retaining technology professionals. Results from “The Deloitte Millennial Survey 2016”¹ indicate that millennials pose a significant flight risk, with 44 percent of those surveyed saying, if given the choice, they expect to leave their current employer in the next two years. That number swells to 66 percent when the time frame is extended to 2020. Only 16 percent of the nearly 7,700 millennials surveyed say they see themselves with their employer a decade from now.

“This remarkable absence of loyalty represents a serious challenge to businesses employing a large number of millennials, especially those in markets like the U.S., where millennials now make up more than a third—and the largest segment—of the workforce,” says Punit Renjen, CEO of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (Deloitte Global). “Even millennials in senior positions express the intention to leave their organizations relatively soon.”

Coupled with a demand for computer science graduates that vastly outstrips supply, the talent and turnover issues highlighted by the survey may grow particularly challenging for CIOs.

Millennials’ Workforce Wanderlust

Deloitte Global’s survey results suggest several factors that may be fueling millennials’ desire to seek new employment, with the most significant being a perceived lack of leadership development opportunities with their current employers.

Among survey respondents who anticipate leaving their current jobs in the next two years, 71 percent report dissatisfaction with their organization’s commitment to developing their leadership skills. The respondents who show the most loyalty to their employers (as indicated by their plans to stay put) were more likely to agree their organizations actively encourage younger employees to aim for leadership roles and offer support and training to those individuals. Meanwhile, the respondents who demonstrate the least loyalty were more likely to say they were being overlooked for potential leadership positions and that their organizations were not fully developing their leadership skills.

The survey results also hint that millennials’ interest in making a career move may be driven by their desire to work for businesses that demonstrate a strong sense of purpose, rather than narrowly focus on financial results. Forty percent of respondents who report high job satisfaction and 40 percent who plan to remain with their current employer beyond 2020 say their employers maintain a strong sense of purpose.

“Closing the ‘purpose gap’ will be critical to attracting and retaining millennials,” notes Renjen. “They want to work for organizations that are committed to their employees, create jobs, and provide goods and services that have a positive impact on people’s lives. Millennials place great importance on those priorities, and business leaders need to demonstrate a commitment to them.”

Appeal to Millennials’ Values

Millennials’ personal values and views on the contributions businesses should make to society very much guide where they choose to work. More than half—56 percent of respondents—say they’ve ruled out working for an organization because of its values or conduct. Their selectivity may explain why 70 percent believe the organizations for which they currently work share their personal values. This figure rises to 82 percent among respondents who intend to stay with their employers for at least another five years.

Values also greatly influence millennials’ decisions about the specific assignments they’re willing to accept. Almost half (49 percent) have chosen not to undertake a project at work because it conflicted with their personal values or ethics. Among survey respondents in senior-level positions, 61 percent have refused an assignment at odds with their values. Geographically, the level of refusal ranges from a low of 20 percent in Japan to a high of 71 percent in Colombia. In the U.S., 48 percent of senior-level millennials and 36 percent of junior-level millennials have elected not to undertake a project that conflicted with their values. Given these findings, it may not be too much of a stretch for CIOs to imagine, for example, software engineers resisting an imperative to follow a DevOps model if they perceive the practice to be detrimental to their work or to lead to the elimination of jobs inside the IT organization.

The upshot? A majority of millennials don’t hesitate to stand their ground when asked to do something that goes against their values. In fact, when asked to rank the influence of different factors on their decision-making at work, personal values/morals top the list. More than half (55 percent) say this has a very high degree of influence, compared with 43 percent who say the same about meeting the organization’s formal objectives. The finding suggests future leaders may base their management decisions as much on their personal ideals as on the need to achieve specific organizational goals.

“A generation ago, many professionals sought long-term relationships with employers, and most would never dream of saying ‘no’ to supervisors,” notes Renjen. “But millennials are more independent than previous generations and more likely to put their values ahead of organizational goals. This could have a dramatic impact on how business is conducted in the future. In the near-term, it speaks to the ways in which businesses and their leaders should seek to recruit and retain millennials—with a value proposition that emphasizes purpose, social impact, and a commitment to developing employees.”

1. The survey was conducted online, between September 4 and October 4, 2015, and garnered responses from 7,700 participants in 29 countries. Respondents were born in or after 1983, hold a college degree, and work full time.

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