By Francis Breault, special collaboration (Journal Accès)
In 2018 I participated in the event where several hundred entrepreneurs, investors and professionals were present to visit more than 100 trendy start-ups.
We started our itinerary at the premises of We work, a common rental space. We work offers startups the chance to host their operations in premises with a chic and at the same time, relaxed atmosphere, in several cites around the world.
A beer dispenser on tap, game tables, tables, benches like we see in restaurants, rest rooms, video game consoles… In short, individual door offices are not very cool.
Open spaces is THE trend. We visited other premises of Montreal companies that have the same flavor of business modernity. I felt like I was part of a college fraternity.
This is very interesting, because we can see companies like Google, Amazon and several other big companies that have the same spirit as these startups. In fact, we are currently in a major shift.
According to the site extreme.tech, currently, in Canada, millennials represent 37% of workers and the same source estimates that, by 2020, they will constitute 50% of workers.
We can see in Europe, the United States and Montreal companies that have the transition at heart.
In fact, there are delegates who take care of company culture and happiness at work. The idea is to continue the community spirit that we can find in universities, but in companies. The latter have, in my opinion, no other option than to adapt their philosophy to that of the new generation, because again according to extreme.tech, 61% of millennial employees intend to leave their job by 2020. This means that 30.5% of Canadian employees will have left their job by 2020, a national job turnover of 30.5%! Did you know that the departure of an employee costs 1.5 times his annual salary, calculating the loss he brings to the company? Can you imagine the losses suffered by companies that resist change?
The solution? Hire someone who is responsible for your company culture.
Ideally, someone who has a good background in human resources, sales or marketing.
We are all consumers of various brands and are loyal to some of them. Why? Marketing. So we have to invest in internal marketing.
The idea is to create an internal branding. We need to create a brand environment for employees. The time when employees gave their life to their employer for compensation is over! They want to be part of human evolution and change the world in their own way.
There are a lot of people criticizing the new generation, but the reality is that we are moving in the right direction. Happiness is king. Take the turn for the better. Stop wanting to control. Think about the teamwork we did at school: we all had tasks to do and together we did a good project. Do the same in your business and focus on the happiness of your employees. Create a common culture and purpose that motivates your troops.