Dive Brief:

• According to Adecco Staffing’s second annual Way to Work Generational Survey, nearly 75% of millennials and Gen Z expect to have 1-4 jobs within five years after graduating from college.
• Along those same lines, a majority of millennial and Gen Z students expect to move to 2 to 3 cities throughout their careers. Joyce Russell, president, Adecco Staffing USA, explains that while this desire to gain a wealth of experience among millennials may foster diverse, flexible employees, employers need to challenge themselves if they expect to retain top talent, especially as the college Class of 2016 is about to join the workforce.
• Russell adds that part of retaining young talent means creating an engaging, unique company culture that encourages a healthy work/life balance. This is especially true when you consider that nearly one third of millennials in the survey say managing their work, family and personal responsibilities have become more difficult over the past five years.

Dive Insight:

While the Adecco survey found there is an expectation and a willingness to relocate, there is one major requirement: stability. To consider relocating to a new city, millennials and Gen Z students require that their jobs promise financial stability, Russell says.

While smaller, gentrifying cities across the country are quickly growing, nearly 16% of all graduates would still choose Los Angeles or New York as their top city for relocation, meaning employers in other cities might consider offering relocation assistance or financial incentives when bidding for top candidates, Russell says.

Additionally, employers should be focusing on discrepancies in salary expectations. According to the survey, young women are entering today’s workplace with more conservative salary expectations than men, with nearly 43% of women expecting to make less than $35,000 in their first job, compared to 34% of men who expect to make that or less.

However, women express more inherent loyalty once employed, with 63% of female respondents agreeing that employees should stay in their first job between 2-3 years (compared to 54% of males).