Neglecting the concerns of millennials — a growing segment of the workforce — around the technology they use at work can result in low morale, low retention and productivity problems. Fortunately, there are ways to satisfy their needs when it comes to the tools and environment that empower them to do their jobs effectively.

A Reset On Workplace Expectations

Millennials (aka Gen Y) are the largest living generation, and ManpowerGroup projects that by 2020 they will make up 35% of the world’s workforce. They have grown up in a world where things can be bought with one click, anything (and anyone) can be looked up on the internet and everyone is connected via social media. As a result, they have no tolerance for a poor user experience or slow, clunky technology.

In fact, many highly-skilled millennials are likely avoiding jobs and even entire industries that do not provide them with the latest tech, as can be deduced from the following studies:

• 93% of millennials surveyed by Microsoft said that it was important to have up-to-date technology, services and solutions in their workplaces; 48% said it was “extremely important.”

• A Nimble Storage survey revealed that 77% of millennials believe that “sub-optimal application performance” challenges their productivity.

• A PwC study of millennials showed that 59% evaluate a job based on access to state-of-the-art technology, and 78% say that having the right technology is a key to effectiveness at work.

Also, there is a healthy desire — or, more like an expectation — that both small and medium-size businesses and corporate employers offer enriching work environments.  A recent study by Fidelity Investments showed that the majority of millennials would accept a pay cut averaging $7,600 in return for a better company culture, more stable work-life balance or career development that would prepare them for more meaningful work. From collaborative teamwork to creative and seamless technology usage, millennials have high demands for employee experience.

So how can organizations satisfy the largest workforce in the market without breaking the bank? We can’t all be Google, but what are incremental yet proven ways to positively impact user experience, keep millennials happy and minimize turnover?

Moving The Needle On Millennial Job Satisfaction

It isn’t difficult to offer employees a better work-life balance. By offering flex working hours, or allowing your staff to telecommute once a week, you can give them the opportunity to spend more time with their families and friends and prevent them from feeling like their lives are being wasted away in an office.

As for the technology issue, you would think that the best way to understand whether your millennial employees are becoming frustrated by slow and clunky software would be to simply ask them. Unfortunately, few workers of any generation want to complain to their bosses or admit they’re having challenges using corporate software.

Thankfully, there are other ways to quantify employee satisfaction. One is to conduct anonymous employee surveys, which help workers feel safe enough to answer with complete honesty. Installing an “Employee Suggestion Box” can have the same effect. Another method is to keep a close eye on your attrition rate; if churn is steadily increasing month by month, it’s a clear sign that your employees are unhappy. Finally, there are several vendors that specialize in helping companies improve their employees’ satisfaction and engagement, including TalentKeepers, DecisionWise and MyEmployees. Another tool you could consider to gain insight into employees’ interactions with their applications is through the use of user experience analytics (which our company provides).

All of the methods listed above can help you gain insight into the millennial mindset, as they answer the five key W’s:

• Who is using the system?

• What are they doing?

• Where are the problems?

• Why are they happening?

• When exactly are they occurring?

This is not just a way of tracking and mitigating technology usability issues — it’s an effective way to shed light on and truly understand the pain points that employees may experience individually or collectively with specific enterprise technology. By understanding these stumbling blocks, employers can develop smarter and more optimized ways to address the issues and create a positive, intuitive and responsive experience for employees. Then they can confirm that their improvements actually worked and implement a process for constant feedback and improvement.

Although employers can’t singlehandedly fix every aspect of their employees’ work-life balance, they can optimize several silo areas, such as giving them more time with family and creating fantastic work environments with engaging technology experiences.