Millennials and Gen Zers are often accused of being feckless employees, ready to jump ship at another opportunity. But this isn’t entirely true. Gen Z is loyal when there’s connection, collaboration, diversity, and growth in their jobs. To earn that loyalty, companies have to offer collaborative spaces where younger workers can grow their career.

Christa Emerson, VP of talent for UnitedHealthcare Group, says that since July of 2022, turnover is trending down and retention higher. “[We often hear that] the reason an employee joins UnitedHealth Group is because they see this opportunity for a huge growth, career, and ability to grow over time. We also hear when people leave that one of the reasons that they leave is because they’re able to find more growth or broader responsibilities at another company.”

During an executive panel discussion at From Day One’s Minneapolis event, Evan Ramstad of the Minneapolis Star Tribune spoke to Emerson and several other experts in the field of HR and talent acquisition (TA) on what younger workers want out of a career, and what employers can do to keep them.

Internal Mobility Matters Big

At UnitedHealthcare, Emerson says they've leaned into internal hiring and mobility. “We specifically put a practice in place that required almost all positions to be exclusively internally posted first, and you have to exhaust all of that before we can go external.”

According to Emerson, internal hiring is now at 55%, up from 45% the previous year.

“We’ve really been clear and intentional about our key strategic priorities and how everyone sees themselves in that vision. If you want to be a contributor, if you want to be a leader, you really can see yourself through succession planning, through our executive coaching, we really invest in those key players,” said Monica Gockowski, the SVP of leadership development at U.S. Bank. They’ve also seen a decline in turnover.

“I think what it always comes back to is, how do we focus on identifying the future skills? And then how do we focus on putting together the appropriate collections, pathways and programs that really look at identifying upskilling opportunities that tie back to how we’re going to deliver ROI at our organization, while also increasing retention or employee mobility," said Korie Holden, enterprise account director at Coursera.

Holden says that top of mind for everyone in the industry is not how AI will automate certain roles, but, instead, how companies will need to upskill and reskill their HR organization to “move the needle forward, both from a business perspective, but also as that human-centric perspective.”

SVP of Sales and Customer Success at Randstad RiseSmart, Chris Harrington says that turnover for a lot of adaptive companies has gone down since the Great Resignation of the Covid years. “Organizations are beginning to invest more and more in solutions and benefits, perquisites, whatever you want to call it, to retain people,” Harrington said.

“It’s not just about your high potentials, or your executive leaders, it’s really about how you can do it for everybody within the organization. The second thing is about internal mobility. And candidly, we're still trying to figure out how to answer this one.”

In a recent survey they did, Harrington says that 45% of TA professionals said that it was easier to fill roles from outside the organization. Another 55% of employees said it's easier for them to find their next job outside the organization. “So there is some sort of a trick that we need to unlock within this space,” Harrington said.

There’s a lot going on in practice in bringing in new talent and retaining it, but the conversation on internal mobility is just beginning. And, for younger workers, not getting those new on-the-job skills and growing their careers “is a deal-breaker when it comes to joining an employer.”

“I think there is a stigma that if we just focus on internal mobility, there’s no innovation. There’s not a diversity of thought or imagination,” said Gockowski. She says that to make internal mobility work, companies have to be intentional about skill development, and not just be focused on ‘the shiny new talent’ they bring in.

“Think about answering that question around mobility and what’s the benefit. The benefit is the person, right? The person feels like they’re cared about, and that what matters to them in terms of how they care for their families, or their lifestyle, is important to the company. And that’s what gives you that kind of stickiness with a company where people feel like this is where I want to stay. This is where I want to grow my career,” said Chief Talent Officer for Schwan’s Company, Kari Ziemer.

It’s not enough to just talk about new skills, says Holden. You have to have a way of identifying them, testing them, and measuring them. “We’ve moved away from this buffet style of learning. We’re providing learning as a benefit [and] creating it all in house. It’s very intentional learning that delivers ROI. You are consistently reporting to your executive team on how this learning is really making an impact in our organization.”

Emerson pointed out that even if your company doesn't have the tech, or can’t afford to invest it, there’s still an important role to play in collecting and fostering talent. “What is your culture of mobility? What are managers looking at as their accountability for being talent stewards, instead of talent hoarders? And what are the cultural elements that you can work on, either ahead of a technology, or despite not having funding for technology.”

Ziemer says that companies need to dial in to what they are trying to accomplish. “We’re trying to solve a problem, right?” After seeing a spike in supervisor turnover, Ziemer says they created a supervisory development program, and tested it to great effect. “If they’re not good leaders, and supervisors, they're not leading people in a way that’s helping us produce the product.”

Opportunity for New Skills

“Historically, coaching was kind of reserved for the top segment of leaders within the organization. So it wasn't the most inclusive solution out there,” said Harrington. But now, there’s a focus on scalable coaching, says Harrington.

Harrington says this type of coaching is as needed, whenever the employee needs it. Some of this coaching is done through external, more generalized solutions but many other companies are creating their own internal bench of coaches for a pool of those in leadership roles and those who want to learn to mentor.

“The more you can create personalized learning and development spaces, for really the most personalized thing you can have, which is a one on one interaction with a human – we think that that’s really powerful.”

Gockowski says that at the end of the day, people are concerned with their career and what they can get from it. “It doesn’t matter about all those different things, but what am I doing to use these tools for the end game for me.”

“What the research is actually telling us is that though it seems like we need to shift our focus to upskilling in these really technical areas, no matter what part of the business you fall in, what we really need is a focus on the human skills. Because human skills drive everything else,” Holden said.

Matthew Koehler is a freelance journalist and licensed real estate agent based in Washington, DC. His work has appeared in Greater Greater Washington, The Washington Post, The Southwester, and Walking Cinema, among others.