According to the Pew Research Center, 10,000 people will reach the age of 65 not only each day this year, but each day for the next 16 years, thus altering the complexion of the workforce in the U.S.
By the year 2030, 18 percent of the population will be at least 65 years of age. For many occupations, the prediction is there will not only be a shortage of workers, but also that replacement workers will have far less experience and will require substantial training.
From a workplace standpoint, those companies that accelerate training programs and create succession plans that address the flexibility, transparency and engagement aspects of the work environment hold the keys to attracting and retaining Millennials, and thus create winning organizations.
The Wall Street Journal takes this belief one step further and claims that workplace innovations and collaborative workspaces do not create the environment but instead are the result of ones that already exist, spawned from one and only one thing: leadership.
By the year 2020, Millennials will make up 50 percent of the global workforce, according to Price Waterhouse Coopers’ Millennials at Work: Reshaping the Workplace white paper. What does this mean for the meetings industry?
What can we extrapolate from Millennial needs for flexibility, transparency and engagement, and then how do we apply it to the way we produce meetings and events? No real data exists to tell us what the impact of Millennials is having on our industry, but they are out there in ever-growing numbers, working for corporations, associations, as independent meeting professionals and in a variety of supplier workplaces.
In planning meetings and events, are we asking the right questions and making the right decisions before we enter into contracts for future business?
Following are some questions we need to ask ourselves as an industry:
- Will newer attendees prefer alternative lodging such as AirBnb, Cotels, Yotels and 9Flat to the traditional hotel environment?
- Since this newer breed of attendees wants to be involved in strategy, do they also want more say in the educational content that is delivered? And if so, how will we engage them? What does this mean for existing contracts, particularly those that do not include review clauses that allow a reduction in the room block (with a reduction in concessions offered)?
- Are Millennials engaged by opening and closing receptions? If not, how are we going to deal with existing contracts that have a high food and beverage spend for these events?
- If flexibility is of interest to Millennials, what will conference schedules of the future look like? Will the “early riser” sessions be replaced by fitness or social events, or even eliminated altogether?
- Will the length of conferences be reduced?
- Will we continue to produce the same type of tradeshows we produced in the 1950s, or will we finally revisit and drastically change the way we design the tradeshows of the future. Will the traditional booth/stand be eliminated in favor of a more open-space environment?
- What about technology? Millennials expect it to be available. Will we finally take that giant step to incorporate those costs into the meeting budget, and/or find a sponsor to offset the costs?
- In a seller’s market, will we have the support of our supplier partners to begin to fill the gap between what kinds of meetings we currently produce and what we need to produce?
- And while we primarily address Millennials in this article, some of these same questions apply to all meeting participants.
- Finally, how will we afford these changes?
Begin the conversation now, collect valuable data, and begin to modify your meetings and events based on the research you conducted. You will be glad you did.