Encouraging Employee Engagement Across the Spectrum

Earlier this month I was in Denver with the Center’s Community Involvement Roundtable. As always, it was a dynamic two days filled with animated discussion, shared challenges, and best practices. Much of our focus for this recent meeting was engaging employees across the professional spectrum, from new hires to pre–retirees, though the conversation extended to retirees as well. This focus on employee engagement is not surprising, as the majority of executives surveyed in the Center’s forthcoming 2014 State of Corporate Citizenship study reported that recruiting and retaining employees are important business goals that are aided by the contribution of corporate citizenship.

Engaging employees at different career stages is nothing new to corporate citizenship professionals, but the growing numbers of employees at each end of the spectrum are creating a need to think more creatively about engagement. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that 25 percent of U.S. workers will be 55 or older by 2022. At the same time, it is estimated that millennials (born between 1979 and 2000) will make up almost half (46 percent) of the U.S. workforce by 2020 and 75 percent of the global workforce by 2025. These two groups of employees have different expectations towards their employer, their career, technology, and their workplace, and the notion of one size does not fit all is more true than ever.

> Read the full post here