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60 PCB007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2023 included. Get to know them. ey will appre- ciate it, and you will be glad that you did it. Keep Them Busy Would you be surprised to hear that your younger workers want to work? What I oen hear from friends entering the workforce aer college is that they are not given enough work. If they are given work, it tends to be tasks that they can finish within an hour. Aer that task, they must chase down their boss and ask for another one—and the cycle repeats. Once you work for a company long enough, you may b e ab le to di st ing ui sh between what absolutely needs to get done and what you can do when times are slow. But as a new employee, you can't do that so easily. When young employees start a job, their ambitions are through the roof. ey want their work to make a difference in the company. This ambition dwindles and goes to waste if they are not met with similar energy and given enough work. To harness all their ambition, be stra- tegic and provide a structured work plan for people who are onboarding. Provide them with projects, not tasks. By starting them on a project that touches multiple aspects of their job, they will quickly and intuitively learn how to best maneuver through their job responsi- bilities. By engaging them in projects instead of individual tasks, you are inadvertently giv- ing a series of challenging and interconnected tasks. Because projects take time and effort, new hires will keep busy with more meaning- ful work—from the start. Positive Reinforcement and Feedback Doing a job without feedback can be nerve- racking. Young new hires oen stress to me that they do not receive feedback. It is not that stage of life where they are trying to find a place to call home, start a family, and build a career. ey are scrambling to make ends meet and plan for the future—obstacles that can seem daunting to overcome. Feeling dis- contented can potentially lead to life-chang- ing choices, such as relocation or finding new jobs. Such decisions are oen viewed as nec- essary to obtain a stable and happier future. When I ask people who are my age why they change or want to change their career, most of them say they do not feel valued by their company. If employers want to retain good employees of younger gen- erations, it's impor tant that they make them feel valued. Based on my experience and those of people I know, here are some ideas on how you can make young people feel more valued in the workplace. Be a True Family is goal may sound c l i c h é , b e c a u s e a l m o s t every company likes to call itself a family, but few compa- nies actually do it. Being a busi- ness family means that your employees feel a sense of connection and interest in each other that goes beyond the workplace. If you are going to work a job for most of your life, it may as well be in the company of people who care about you. In the early stages of joining a new company, it is very easy for an employee to feel alien- ated. It is bound to happen to some extent because they are unfamiliar with the compa- ny's culture and people. But remember that first impressions matter. If there is no effort to mitigate this feeling of alienation, it will stick with them and serve as a voice of doubt in any relationship they form. So, when you hire new people, try your best to make them feel If employers want to retain good employees of younger generations, it's important that they make them feel valued.