1

WORK-RELATED ATTRIBUTES AND RETENTION:

COMPARING MILLENNIALS AND

OTHER GENERATIONS

The members of the Committee approve the doctoral dissertation of:

Official Student Name Raymond P. Pasko

Committee Chair Name Rosemary Maellaro, Ph.D.

Committee Member Name Michael Stodnick, Ph.D.

Director of Doctoral Programs R. Greg Bell, Ph.D.

Dean of the College of Business Brett J. L. Landry, Ph.D.

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Copyright © by Raymond P. Pasko

All Rights Reserved

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WORK-RELATED ATTRIBUTES AND RETENTION:

COMPARING MILLENNIALS AND

OTHER GENERATIONS

by

RAYMOND P. PASKO

Presented to the Faculty of the

The University of Dallas in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements

for the Degree of

DOCTOR OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

THE UNIVERSITY OF DALLAS

October 2017

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

October 25, 2017

There are so many people I would like to acknowledge and thank for their support

and guidance throughout this journey.

First, I would like to thank my employer, Alcon Laboratories, and all of the

leaders who have supported me along the way while I pursued my dream of earning a

doctorate degree. Their understanding and compassion coupled with the financial support

from the company helped ease the burden of working while chasing my dream.

I would like to convey my heartfelt gratitude to my dissertation committee chair,

Dr. Rosemary Maellaro, for her continuing support and guidance throughout this process.

Rosemary’s attention to detail, support and feedback helped me become a better writer, a

better researcher, and overall a more intellectually curious person, all of which will

benefit me throughout the rest of my career. Thank you Dr. Maellaro! I would also to like

to express my sincere appreciation to the other member of my dissertation committee, Dr.

Michael Stodnick. I could also count on Michael to add a profound insight forcing me to

dig deeper and find the connection between thoughts and ideas which I had not fully

developed. While in the heat of the battle I often felt that Dr. Stodnick was adding

additional work on my plate, I realize now that he was making my research and my

dissertation better and was adding tremendous value. Thank you Dr. Stodnick.

I would also like to thank the rest of the faculty at the University of Dallas’ who

helped steer our inaugural DBA class on this wild and intense journey. Each and every

one of these faculty members helped mold and shape us into better students, and

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researchers. I hope we all make them proud and I wish them success with the DBA

cohorts which follow us.

I couldn’t have gotten through this three plus year journey without the support

and camaraderie of my fellow DBA cohort members. Each and every one of them made

the experience fun, exciting, and rewarding. And I will be as proud when they finish their

dissertations and become doctors, as I am of my own accomplishments. I was lucky to

learn and develop alongside such fine and noble scholars!

I would also like to acknowledge the love and support of my mother, Dorothy

Pasko, who always encouraged me to dream big, and helped me believe that I could do

whatever I set my mind to. I know early on, Mom wanted me to me a doctor, and I know

she was a little disappointed when I changed my major in college from pre-med to

business. I hope that earning my doctorate degree now will take a little of the sting out of

that initial disappointment.

Last, but certainly not least, I would never have had the courage to undertake this

initiative without the love and support of my family. My daughter Lindsey, who I thought

would become a Dr. before me, gave me the encouragement, love and prodding to take

on this challenge. And that leads me to my greatest supporter, the one person who has

always been there for me, through the best and worst of times, my wife Susan Ann

Greene Pasko. It was her pushing and prodding that encouraged me to apply to the

University of Dallas’ DBA program, and who stood beside me and supported me every

step of the way. I can recall countless times when she would read and reread my papers,

proofreading them and correcting the myriad of spelling and grammar mistakes. Her love

and support never wavered, and when things got tough and I thought of throwing in the

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towel and quitting the program, Susan was the calming voice talking me down off the

ledge. Without her encouragement and love I would never have made it through the

program to realize my dream of becoming a doctor. Thank you, Susan, I love you and so

appreciate all of your support.

I couldn’t have done this without the support and encouragement of each and

every one of you, and I am so eternally grateful to all of you! I hope that I can pay your

support forward as I continue my scholarly journey!

God bless you all!

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DEDICATION

I dedicate this dissertation to the one person that has always been there for me,

cheering me along, my loving wife, Susan Ann Green Pasko. Without her love and

support I would never have made it successfully to the end of this incredible journey. The

doctoral degree that I have earned as a result of this dissertation is as much yours as it is

mine. Thank you, sweetheart!

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ABSTRACT

WORK-RELATED ATTRIBUTES AND RETENTION:

COMPARING MILLENNIALS AND

OTHER GENERATIONS

Raymond P. Pasko, DBA.

The University of Dallas, 2017

Supervising Professor: Rosemary Maellaro, Ph.D.

Employers need to fill a widening gap within the U.S. workforce as a result of older

generations aging out and retiring. Millennial employees, the fastest growing generational

cohort, are the primary worker group that employers must rely upon to close this gap.

However, Millennials’ expectations regarding work-related attributes are different from

previous generations. Therefore, companies need to understand what Millennials expect

from their employers and become proactive in meeting those expectations, so they can

retain millennial workers. This study surveyed three generations of workers currently

employed by a health care company headquartered in the southwestern part of the U.S. to

identify which combination of work-related attributes is most effective in influencing

them to stay. The results indicate that job security, having a say, career advancement, and

work/life balance were the most significant work-related attributes to influence

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Millennials to stay with their current employer. This combination varies from the work-

related attributes most valued by other generations. Additional findings show that older

Millennials prefer a different combination of work-related attributes than younger

Millennials and that supervisors value different work-related attributes than non-

supervisors. The results of this study can be used by employers to adjust the work-related

attributes offered to both Millennials and workers from other generations to increase

employee retention. Additionally, employers can provide different combinations of work-

related attributes to all of its employees to meet the needs of the different generations.

Key words: Millennials, generation theory, psychological contract, conjoint analysis,

intention to stay, retention, worker gap

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ 8

TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................. 10

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ............................................................................................ 16

LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ 17

Chapter 1 ........................................................................................................................... 19

1.1 Research Objectives .................................................................................................... 24

1.2 Contribution to Business Practice ............................................................................... 24

1.3 Contribution to Academic Literature .......................................................................... 26

1.4 Research Methods ....................................................................................................... 26

1.5 Structure of the Dissertation ....................................................................................... 28

1.6 Research Question ...................................................................................................... 28

Chapter 2 ........................................................................................................................... 29

2.1 Theoretical Framework Literature Discussion ............................................................ 29

2.2 Operational Definitions ............................................................................................... 31

2.3 Theoretical Lens 1: Generational Cohort Theory ....................................................... 34

2.3.1 Definition of the generations. .................................................................................. 35

2.3.2 The Traditionalist Generation. ................................................................................. 36

2.3.3 The Baby Boomer Generation. ................................................................................ 37

2.3.4 Generation X. ........................................................................................................... 38

2.3.5 The Millennial Generation. ...................................................................................... 39

2.3.6 The Post-Millennial generation................................................................................ 40

2.3.7 Comparison of the generations. ............................................................................... 41

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2.3.8 Comparison of engagement levels. .......................................................................... 42

2.3.9 Generational job seekers. ......................................................................................... 42

2.3.10 How Millennials are Different. .............................................................................. 43

2.4 Theoretical Lens 2: Psychological Contract Theory ................................................... 44

2.4.1 Work-related attributes. ........................................................................................... 47

2.4.2 Millennials’ Expectations Regarding Work-related Attributes. .............................. 48

2.4.3 Overall compensation. ............................................................................................. 48

2.4.4 Career Advancement and Promotion. ...................................................................... 50

2.4.5 Recognition. ............................................................................................................. 50

2.4.6 Training and development. ...................................................................................... 51

2.4.7 Coaching and frequent feedback. ............................................................................. 51

2.4.8 Meaningful work experiences. ................................................................................. 52

2.4.9 Flexibility/Flexible Work Hours. ............................................................................. 53

2.4.10 Work/life Balance. ................................................................................................. 53

2.4.11 Personal Relationship with Supervisor/Co-workers. ............................................. 54

2.4.12 Workplace Fun. ...................................................................................................... 55

2.4.13 Job security. ........................................................................................................... 56

2.4.14 Strong leadership. .................................................................................................. 57

2.4.15 Having a say. .......................................................................................................... 57

2.4.16 Study relevance to organizations. .......................................................................... 57

2.5 Theoretical Lens 3: Employee Turnover and Intention to Stay .................................. 59

2.5.1 Categories of turnover. ............................................................................................. 62

2.5.2 Intention to stay........................................................................................................ 63

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2.5.3 Organization challenges. .......................................................................................... 64

2.5.4 Millennial turnover. ................................................................................................. 64

2.6 Hypothesis................................................................................................................... 65

2.7 Summary ..................................................................................................................... 66

Chapter 3 ........................................................................................................................... 68

3.1 Independent Variables ................................................................................................ 69

3.2 Dependent Variable .................................................................................................... 69

3.3 Research Design.......................................................................................................... 70

3.4 Research Study - Phase 1 ............................................................................................ 71

3.4.1 Research design and methodology – phase 1. ......................................................... 71

3.4.2 Participant profile and recruitment process - phase 1. ............................................. 72

3.4.3 Ethical considerations – phase 1. ............................................................................. 72

3.4.4 Data collection – phase 1. ........................................................................................ 73

3.4.5 Results – phase 1. ..................................................................................................... 74

3.5 Research Study - Phase 2 ............................................................................................ 78

3.5.1 Research design and methodology – phase 2. ......................................................... 79

3.5.2 Participant profile and recruitment process - phase 2. ............................................. 86

3.5.3 Ethical considerations – phase 2. ............................................................................. 88

3.5.4 Survey pilot test – phase 2. ...................................................................................... 89

3.5.5 Data collection – phase 2. ........................................................................................ 89

3.5.6 Data analysis – phase 2. ........................................................................................... 90

3.6 Limitations .................................................................................................................. 92

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3.7 Summary ..................................................................................................................... 93

Chapter 4 ........................................................................................................................... 95

4.1 Survey Response Patterns ........................................................................................... 96

4.1.1 Participant background information ........................................................................ 96

4.2 Overall Attribute Importance ...................................................................................... 99

4.3 Overall Attribute Part-Worth Utilities ...................................................................... 101

4.4 Survey Validation – Hold-out Task Comparisons .................................................... 102

4.5 Segmented Survey Result ......................................................................................... 105

4.5.1 Statistical significance determination. ................................................................... 106

4.5.2 Attribute importance by generational cohort. ........................................................ 107

4.5.3 Attribute importance by gender. ............................................................................ 112

4.5.4 Attribute importance by respondent position. ........................................................ 113

4.5.5 Attribute importance by respondent education level. ............................................ 114

4.5.6 Most Important attribute to improve. ..................................................................... 114

4.5.7 Most important attribute to improve by generation. .............................................. 115

4.5.8 Self-reported intention to stay. ............................................................................... 117

4.5.9 Self-reported intention to stay by generation. ........................................................ 117

4.6 Summary of Results .................................................................................................. 119

4.6.1 Research question answered. ................................................................................. 119

Chapter 5 ......................................................................................................................... 121

5.1 Findings..................................................................................................................... 122

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5.1.1 Importance of job security. .................................................................................... 122

5.1.2 Work-related attribute preference - Millennials. ................................................... 123

5.1.3 Work-related attribute preference - Millennials and non-Millennials. .................. 124

5.1.4 Work-related attribute preference - older and younger Millennials. ..................... 125

5.1.5 Work-related attribute preference - males and females. ........................................ 125

5.1.6 Work-related attribute preference - supervisors and non-supervisors. .................. 126

5.2 Research Contributions ............................................................................................. 126

5.2.1 Managerial Contributions. ..................................................................................... 127

5.2.2 Managerial contributions that confirm research. ................................................... 127

5.2.3 Managerial contributions that extend research. ..................................................... 128

5.2.4 Academic Contributions. ....................................................................................... 128

5.3 Implications for Management ................................................................................... 130

5.3.1 Implications for managing Millennials. ................................................................. 131

5.3.2 Implications for addressing generational differences. ........................................... 133

5.3.3 Implications for addressing gender differences. .................................................... 136

5.3.4 Implications for addressing differences between employee roles. ........................ 136

5.3.5 Implications for the participating company. .......................................................... 137

5.4 Limitations ................................................................................................................ 138

5.5 Future Research ........................................................................................................ 141

5.6 Summary and Conclusion ......................................................................................... 143

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 144

APPENDIX A ................................................................................................................. 155

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APPENDIX B ................................................................................................................. 156

APPENDIX C ................................................................................................................. 157

APPENDIX D ................................................................................................................. 158

APPENDIX E ................................................................................................................. 159

APPENDIX F.................................................................................................................. 160

APPENDIX G ................................................................................................................. 161

APPENDIX H ................................................................................................................. 166

APPENDIX I .................................................................................................................. 168

APPENDIX J .................................................................................................................. 169

APPENDIX K ................................................................................................................. 170

APPENDIX L ................................................................................................................. 174

APPENDIX M ................................................................................................................ 175

APPENDIX N ................................................................................................................. 176

APPENDIX O ................................................................................................................. 177

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1: Job-Related Attribute Expectations and Impact on Retention .......................... 31

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Generational Composition of the U.S. Workforce ............................................. 20

Table 2: Work Values and Preferences by Generation ..................................................... 41

Table 3: Importance of Work-related Attributes .............................................................. 43

Table 4: Phase 1 Survey Completion Rates ...................................................................... 73

Table 5: Phase 1 Participant Survey Composition ............................................................ 74

Table 6: Phase 1 Results by Respondent Group ............................................................... 76

Table 7: Phase 1 Results by Generation ........................................................................... 77

Table 8: Phase 1 Results by Combined Ranking Method................................................. 78

Table 9: Composition and Turnover History of Participating Company .......................... 87

Table 10: CBC Survey Response by Generation .............................................................. 97

Table 11: CBC Survey Response by Millennial Generation Sub Group .......................... 97

Table 12: Survey Response by Educational Level ........................................................... 99

Table 13: Average Importances ...................................................................................... 100

Table 14: CBC/HB Attribute Utilities Summary ............................................................ 102

Table 15: CBC/HB Attribute Utilities Summary Comparison ....................................... 102

Table 16: Hold-out Task 1 .............................................................................................. 103

Table 17: Hold-out Task 2 .............................................................................................. 104

Table 18: Hit or Miss Table for Hold-out Questions ...................................................... 105

Table 19: Attribute Ranking by Generational Cohort ..................................................... 107

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Table 20: Attribute Importance and Statistical Significance by Generational Cohort ... 109

Table 21: Attribute Importance Older Millennials compared to Other Generations ...... 110

Table 22: Attribute Importance Younger Millennials compared to Other Generations . 111

Table 23: Attribute Importance Older Millennials compared to Younger Millennials .. 112

Table 24: Attribute Importance by Gender ..................................................................... 113

Table 25: Attribute Importance Supervisor compared to Non-Supervisor ..................... 114

Table 26: Work-Related Attribute to Improve................................................................ 115

Table 27: Work-Related Attribute to Improve by Generation ........................................ 116

Table 28: Attribute to Improve for Older and Younger Millennials .............................. 117

Table 29: Self-reported Intention to Stay ........................................................................ 117

Table 30: Self-reported Intention to Stay by Generational Cohort ................................. 119

Table 31: Self-reported Intention to Stay by Millennial Sub-group ............................... 119

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

The generational composition of the American workforce is rapidly changing.

Many Traditionalists (born between 1900 and 1945) have already exited the workforce,

and large numbers of Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1965) are in the process of

leaving (Fry, 2015). This creates an employee shortage in the United States that continues

to grow, and is expected to continue for at least the next 15 years (Hartman, 2016). In

order to close this gap employers must look to subsequent generations. While Generation

X (those born between 1965 and 1979) would be the logical source of replacement

employees, the number of Millennials (people born between 1980 and 1996) has

surpassed Generation X to become the largest generational segment available in the

American workforce (Fry, 2015) and, is therefore more likely to fill this employee gap.

The subsequent generation of post-Millennials (born after 1996) provides little help to fill

the worker gap as it has not yet fully entered the workforce. Therefore, the ability to

retain Millennials in the organization has arisen as a critical need for employers today.

Table 1 shows the current generational composition of the American workforce

(Fry, 2015), significant because it shows the importance of the millennial generation in

total, as they represent the largest number of workers. Because they are still entering the

workforce, they can help fill the gap that Traditionalists and Baby Boomers are creating

as they leave. This importance of millennial employees means that organizations must

focus on retaining Millennials to prevent diminished financial success that could result

from the loss of the experienced members of previous generations. The situation becomes

even more urgent because Millennials change jobs and careers more frequently than

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previous generations (Lyons, Schweitzer, Ng, & Kuron, 2012). Losing millennial

employees because of their accelerated job changing further exacerbates the worker gap

issue for companies; therefore, understanding why this loss is occurring and preventing it

are important.

Table 1: Generational Composition of the U.S. Workforce

Generational Composition of the U.S. Workforce

Generation Birth Years # of U.S.

workers (M) % of U.S. workforce

Traditionalists 1900 – 1945 3.7 2% Baby Boomers 1946 – 1964 44.6 29% Generation X 1965 – 1979 52.7 34% Millennials 1980 – 1996 53.5 34% Post-Millennials 1996 – present 1.7 1% Total 156.2

Note: Adapted from Fry, 2015

The millennial generation has been described as radically different than previous

generations entering the workforce (Solnet & Hood, 2008; Solnet, Kraly, &

Kandampully, 2012). According to Brack (2012), Millennials are unlike preceding

generations in the way they view the world and define success, both on a personal and

professional level. Millennials define success according to the quality and level of

experiences they have, the connectivity to their relationships, and the organization for

which they work, all resulting in having a job they love (Landrum, 2016). Relationships

are critical to Millennials, both at home and at work (Deal & Levenson, 2016). In

addition, Millennials desire and expect a communal approach to management, which

requires that organizations develop and engage with their employees in different ways

(Canals, 2010; Karsh & Templin, 2013). Perhaps because of their different approach to

the workplace, Millennials are plagued by stereotypes, such as they are lazy, apathetic,

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and lack motivation (Caraher, 2014; Sashittal, Jassawalla, & Markulis, 2012), to name a

few. On the other hand, Giancola (2006) contends that Millennials are not significantly

different than others who are faced with the life changes and challenges of entering the

workforce for the first time. Regardless of the preconceptions held about Millennials,

organizations must understand how to retain this large and expanding segment of the

workforce; otherwise, they risk losing billions of dollars to unwanted turnover (Sujansky

& Ferri-Reed, 2009). This study focuses on what work-related attributes are most

important to retain Millennials.

In this study, the term work-related attributes is used to describe the benefits, both

tangible and non-tangible, that employees receive in return for the work they do for their

companies. Within the tangible category are monetary and non-monetary considerations.

The monetary category includes salary, commission, bonuses, tuition reimbursement, and

stock options, while the non-monetary category includes health insurance coverage, life

and disability insurance, paid time off, and sick leave. The non-tangible category includes

career development and advancement, flexible working schedules, quality of

management and leadership of the company, feedback and coaching, and working

environment. Millennials have specific career goals and expectations, and the work-

related attributes that a company provides them will determine whether they will be loyal

to the company and remain or leave in search of opportunities with other employers who

will provide attributes they find more appealing.

A preponderance of empirical research demonstrates marked differences in

attitudes, preferences, and expectations of Millennials compared to other generations

(Myers & Sadaghiani, 2010; Ng, Schweitzer, & Lyons, 2010). While a lot has been

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written about Millennials, questions remain about the generation’s attraction, retention,

and organizational commitment (Hershatter & Epstein, 2010; Twenge, 2010). Research

demonstrates that good work–life balance (Twenge, 2010), meaningful work (Lancaster

& Stillman, 2002; Ng et al., 2010), and frequent recognition (Hershatter & Epstein, 2010;

Ng et al., 2010) can contribute to Millennial loyalty and retention. However, an

increasing amount of research points to the critical nature of relationships at work as a

significant factor in the job satisfaction and retention of Millennials. Specifically,

relationships with immediate managers may be the key to increasing motivation and

retention among Millennials (Hershatter & Epstein, 2010; Lancaster & Stillman, 2010;

Ng et al., 2010). Despite the growing amount of research published about them,

Millennials present greater challenges than previous generations for employers who wish

to understand and retain them (Hershatter & Epstein, 2010). Millennials also represent a

paradox, in that they do not always act in accordance with their intentions. A study by

Kowske, Rasch, & Wiley (2010) confirmed this inconsistency; it found Millennials’

turnover was higher than members of other generations, despite the fact that Millennials

report lower turnover intentions. In other words, Millennials’ behavior with respect to

leaving organizations is inconsistent with their stated intention to stay.

When considering the retention of employees, an important element often

investigated is the employee’s role within an organization. Roles are differentiated

between employees who manage others and individual contributors without management

responsibility. Millennials who have reached a management position might be more

likely to stay with their current employer because they have started to realize the career

importance and significance that Millennials desire (Ng et al., 2010).

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Length of time with an organization is often measured and reported as a way to

determine employee satisfaction. For this reason, company human resource (HR)

departments and trade associations focused on HR issues routinely track and report the

tenure of employees who leave organizations. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports

the average tenure of employees who leave an organization and calculates whether these

employees are leaving faster (with less tenure) than in years past. While the agency’s age

classification does not exactly match the current Millennial age range of 20-36, it does

report that the median tenure of workers 25 to 34 is only three years (U.S. Bureau of

Labor Statistics, 2017b). This figure is slightly lower than the 2012 study results, when

Millennials' median tenure was 3.2 years, indicating that Millennials are leaving

companies at an accelerating pace.

In summary, current and future employee shortages due to the Baby Boomer and

Traditionalist generations aging out of the workplace make retaining Millennials an

imperative for U.S. businesses. As a generational cohort, Millennials have specific and

unique job factor requirements that motivate them to stay with their current employer

rather than seeking employment elsewhere. The literature indicates that some of the

work-related attributes that attract Millennials to an organization and motivate them to

stay include work/life balance, meaningful work, feedback based on their strengths,

frequent recognition, and having a personal relationship with their boss (Adkins, 2016;

Deal & Levenson, 2016; Rainer & Rainer, 2011; Sujansky & Ferri-Reed, 2009).

Additionally, Millennials’ role and length of time they have already spent working in an

organization can impact their decision to remain with that organization.

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1.1 Research Objectives

The goal of this research is to assess the influencing power of specific work-

related attributes and to determine the ideal combination of these attributes that might

best predict Millennials’ intention to stay with an organization. Millennials do not always

act in accordance with what they say (Kowske et al., 2010); therefore, getting to their

deeper motivations and intentions is critically important. This study assesses such

motivations and intentions by using a conjoint analysis methodology. Conjoint analysis is

an analytical technique adapted from marketing research, used in this study to analyze the

trade-offs Millennials are willing to make among work-related attributes when deciding

to stay with their current employer or to seek employment elsewhere. Conjoint analysis

allows the investigation of the impact of individual work-related attributes, as well as

how the combination of these attributes affects Millennials’ intention to stay. Many of the

published retention / intention to stay studies have concentrated on the individual work-

related attributes that influence workers. This study offers a unique perspective in that it

investigates the impact of both individual and combinations of work-related attributes,

and considers the effect of moderating variables with a specific focus on Millennials.

1.2 Contribution to Business Practice

One goal of this study is to help employers retain their millennial employees by

understanding what Millennials want and expect in return for their work. By knowing

what is important to Millennials, employers can modify and customize the work-related

attributes they provide, thereby increasing the likelihood Millennials will remain with the

company. It is not fiscally possible for a company to provide employees with all of the

work-related attributes they may desire. Therefore, a company should seek the optimal

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combination of work-related attributes that lead to higher retention. Limited published

empirical research has been done on the topic of millennial retention through work-

related attributes, therefore heightening the significance of this study. Findings may also

be useful for practitioners who wish to understand and leverage the expectations of

millennial job seekers within the U.S.

One way organizations can better understand the needs of Millennials is to pay

attention to what they ask for and are willing to negotiate for while being recruited.

Organizations can then utilize this information to provide the desired levels of work-

related attributes that increase millennial satisfaction, thereby increasing the probability

of retention. Investing the time and effort to determine what they are looking for in an

employment relationship will help a company better understand Millennials’ needs.

Findings from this study will provide an additional benefit to employers with respect to

successfully hiring millennial workers. Millennial job seekers are likely to be motivated

by the same work-related attributes that influence their intention to stay with their

company. Job seekers will consider companies that they believe can offer the most

appealing combination of work-related attributes and will look for such information by

investigating a company’s corporate website, searching the available public data on the

internet, contacting the company’s HR department, or speaking with current or past

employees. This study can provide information and insights so that companies can craft

their recruitment strategy toward millennial job seekers in the most attractive light

possible. Therefore, in addition to the retention of Millennials, this study also informs and

aids companies in their recruitment of Millennials.

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1.3 Contribution to Academic Literature

Much of the academic literature pertaining to employee turnover and intention to

stay deals with employees as a group. This study specifically addresses a key

generational subset of employees – Millennials. Within the extant academic research

involving all employees, the issue of turnover has been identified and discussed, but

researchers have not, to date, discovered why specifically Millennials have a strong

preference for multiple job changes (Ng et al., 2010; Rupp, Vodanovich, & Crede, 2006)

and choose to “job-hop” instead (Meier, Austin, & Crocker, 2010). This study attempts to

understand the work-related attributes that, if present, may influence Millennials to stay

with their current employer. The classic literature on employee intention to stay and

turnover also identifies the reasons why employees choose to leave companies, but

perhaps the work-related attributes that Millennials find enticing and rewarding differ

from past generations (Kaifi, Nafei, Khanfar, & Kaifi, 2012). This study suggests

answers to these questions, adding to the empirical literature on Millennials.

1.4 Research Methods

The research design for this study is a field study focused on millennial workers.

The key benefit of this research strategy is the realism it affords, because it engages

subjects (in this case, workers) and surveys them about their existing work experience

and expectations. It is less obtrusive to the study participants because they can respond in

their natural setting to questions about which work-related attributes would influence

them to stay with their employer longer. Despite the benefit of realism, a potential

downside of field studies is the possible lack of generalizability to the entire population.

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This study’s research methodology employs conjoint analysis, typically used to

analyze the trade-offs a consumer is willing to make when deciding among multi-

attributed products or services (Green & Srinivasan, 1978; Green, Krieger and Wind,

2001). This method of research presents combinations of work-related attributes that

respondents evaluate according to their preference. From these evaluations, the relative

importance of each attribute can be determined (Green & Wind, 1975; Kapur, Kumar,

Banga, & Surana, 2008) based on posterior probabilities (Gilbride, Lenk, & Brazell,

2008). While conjoint analysis is primarily used to study consumer preferences regarding

traditional products and goods, with the aim of product evaluation, repositioning,

competitive analysis, or pricing (Engleberg, Pierson, & Kashio, 1992), it has also been

used within the Organization Behavior discipline to investigate which employer

characteristics influence candidates’ job choice decisions, and how applicants evaluate

certain organizational characteristics to decide which companies to work for (Baum &

Kabst, 2013). Recasting this study with regard to the traditional actors in a conjoint

analysis requires replacement of the components. This study investigates Millennials (in

place of consumers), companies (in place of products), and work-related attributes (in

place of product attributes).

This research was conducted in two phases. The first phase was a survey sent to

several groups, including members of the three relevant generation groups to determine

the key work-related attributes that influence their intention to stay with an organization.

I utilized a preliminary list of work-related attributes as a stimulus in this phase, and

participants were allowed to write in other attributes that would motivate them to stay

with their employer. The results of this survey were combined with the information

28

identified in the literature review to distinguish which work-related attributes would

cause Millennials to continue working in their current organization. This process was

iterative to make sure the correct work-related attributes were identified. Once

determined, these key work-related attributes became the basis for formulating a priori

hypotheses, which were investigated in phase 2 of the study. Phase 2 employed choice-

based conjoint (CBC) analysis to survey working Millennials and empirically assess the

relative importance they place on the key work-related attributes to determine the ideal

combination of work-related attributes that are most likely to influence them to stay with

their current employer.

1.5 Structure of the Dissertation

The rest of this study is organized as follows: Chapter Two begins with a

literature review of the pertinent conceptual theories within the organization behavior

discipline, including the notions of generational cohorts, work-related attributes,

workplace motivation, and intention to stay to establish the conceptual framework for the

research. It then does a deep dive into the research involving Millennials to better

understand what makes them unique and what guides their workplace expectations in

order to examine the central research question. Chapter Three describes the methodology

for conducting this research. Subsequent chapters discuss the study’s results and examine

the practical implications and limitations of the study, along with future areas of research.

1.6 Research Question

The central research question of this study is: What work-related attributes should

organizations provide to increase millennial workers’ retention and are these different for

other generations?

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CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

The foundational frameworks used in this study are generational cohort,

psychological contract, and employee turnover / intention to stay theories. Within

psychological contract theory, the work-related attributes that companies provide

employees are discussed, followed by an examination of the four key generational

cohorts that comprise the U.S. workforce (Traditionalist, Baby Boomers, Generation X

and Millennials). While the specific characteristics of each generational cohort are

discussed, significant time and attention are devoted to the millennial generation due to

their importance in filling the U.S. worker gap. Millennials are then compared to the

other generations, focusing on the work-related attributes they expect to receive in

exchange for their work at a company. Following this comparison is a discussion of the

importance of companies delivering on these expectations and the resulting impact on

millennial employees and the companies themselves if they do not. I next examine

existing research regarding organizations’ efforts to understand, attract, and retain

Millennials. Finally, I discuss the importance of the extant literature to both academia and

business.

2.1 Theoretical Framework Literature Discussion

Three theoretical lenses guide this study and, therefore, are the focus of this

literature review: generational cohort theory, psychological contract theory, and

employee turnover / intention to stay theory. Within psychological contract theory, the

sub-lens of work-related attributes is discussed and explored relative to both employee

intention to stay and turnover. This study reflects an evolving theoretical model using

30

empirical data to identify the need for companies to understand Millennials and then

utilize this understanding to determine which job-related attributes to offer, and at what

levels, to retain these important employees.

The model focuses on workers from different generational cohorts, both

Millennials and non-Millennials. The Non-Millennials will be grouped into Baby

Boomers and Generation Xers and studied through the theoretical lens of generational

cohort theory. Expectations of these workers with regard to work-related attributes were

investigated, as was their valuation of the importance of potential work-related attributes

that companies can offer them. Through the use of conjoint analysis, these workers

evaluated and selected the combinations and levels of work-related attributes most

appealing to them, as well as most likely to cause them to remain with their employer,

presented in hypothetical job offerings. The combination of work-related attributes most

likely to meet their expectations was investigated through the theoretical lens of

psychological contract theory. Millennials’ preference for the hypothetical job options

that best meet their expectations would perhaps lead to an increase in their intention to

stay; this behavior was studied through an employee turnover and intention to stay

theoretical lens. However, the measurement of intention to stay was not included as itis

outside the scope of this study. The theoretical frames and their relationships to the

constructs of investigation in this study are identified in Figure 1.

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Figure 1: Job-Related Attribute Expectations and Impact on Retention

2.2 Operational Definitions

Several terms are important to this study, used repeatedly throughout the

document. A brief definition and explanation of each of these terms follows.

Baby Boomers: The term given to the generational group whose individuals were

born between 1946 and 1964 (Caraher, 2014; Fry, 2015; Gallup, 2016; Lancaster &

Stillman, 2010; Tulgan, 2016; Twenge, 2010). This group has also been referred to as

Thirteenth, or the Lost Generation (Parry & Urwin, 2011). With regard to the U.S.

workforce, this generation numbers 44.6 million and comprises 29% of the total labor

force (Fry, 2015).

Generation X: Generation X is the label given to the generational group whose

individuals were born between 1965 and 1979 (Caraher, 2014; Fry, 2015; Gallup, 2016;

Lancaster & Stillman, 2010; Tulgan, 2016; Twenge, 2010). There are currently 42.7

million Generation X workers in the U.S. and they comprise 34% of the total labor force

(Fry, 2015).

32

Generational cohort theory: The theory that describes and explains the behavior

of a group of people of a similar age who experience similar historical events (Costanza,

Badger, Fraser, Severt, & Gade, 2012). Parry and Urwin (2011) describe a generational

cohort as a group of individuals born at the same time who behave similarly because of

shared experiences.

Intention to stay: This term refers to an employee’s plan to remain working for

their current employer and is essentially the opposite of intention to leave (Chew & Chan,

2008). Intention to stay is important because it is an indication of whether an employee is

at risk of leaving the organization.

Millennials: The generational group whose individuals were born between 1980

and 2000 (Caraher, 2015; Deal & Levenson, 2016; Hartman & McCambridge, 2011;

Legas & Sims, 2011; Rainer & Rainer, 2011). This group has also been called

“Generation Y,” “Nexters,” and “Echo Boomers” (Parry & Urwin, 2011), and numerous

literature studies and publications, both academic and business–related, discuss this

group. While the literature identifies a range of birth years, for this study, I am using the

birth years 1980 - 2000 to define the millennial generation. This age range was selected

using the mathematical averages (median and mode) from an analysis of 32 publications

focused on Millennials, including both research studies and business publications. This

recap of published studies and the birth year range they identify for the different

generational cohorts is attached in Appendix A. There are currently 53.5 million

millennial workers in the U.S., comprising 34% of the total labor force (Fry, 2015).

Post-Millennials: The generational group whose individuals were born after 2000

(Deal & Levenson, 2016). The oldest members of this cohort are now turning 16 and

33

have not yet entered the full-time work force (Fry, 2015). For this reason, Post-

Millennials will not be addressed in this study.

Psychological contract theory: A theory describing an individual’s beliefs

regarding the terms and conditions of their employment and what is expected in the

exchange agreement between employees and their organizations, and vice versa

(Rousseau, 1989). The establishment of any psychological contract involves the belief

that a promise (either implicit or explicit) has been made and that a consideration has

been offered in exchange for the promise (Turnley & Feldman, 2000). A psychological

contract exists between an employer and its employees and is a reciprocal relationship,

meaning that both parties expect to get something out of the relationship. For example,

employers benefit from the work and effort of their employees, and in return, employees

expect fair treatment, safe working conditions, and continued employment (Bingham,

Oldroyd, Thompson, Bednar, & Bunderson, 2014).

Traditionalists: The term given to the generational group whose individuals were

born between 1925 and 1945 (Caraher, 2014; Costanza et al., 2012; Fry, 2015; Lancaster

& Stillman, 2010). This group has also been referred to as the “Silent Generation”

(Costanza et al., 2012; Fry, 2015), “Veterans” or “Matures” (Parry & Urwin, 2011). At

present there are 3.7 million Traditionalist workers in the U.S., and this group comprises

2% of the total labor force (Fry, 2015).

Work-related attributes: This term refers to what employees hope to receive

during the course of their employment with a specific organization. This construct is

drawn from the inducements or expectations in the psychological contract between the

employee and their employer (De Hauw & De Vos, 2010). Regarding these work-related

34

attributes, an employee’s expectations include, but are not limited to, salary, benefits,

training, professional development, career advancement, job security, work/life balance,

social connections, and meaningful work. Each of these terms is explored in greater depth

within the psychological contract section.

2.3 Theoretical Lens 1: Generational Cohort Theory

The task of trying to understand, motivate, and design human resource (HR)

policies to address each individual is daunting and almost impossible. Large

organizations can employ tens of thousands of workers, and to try to address the

preferences of every one of them individually is not feasible or practical. Therefore, the

idea of grouping them together based on some common attributes, needs, or expectations

is appealing. Many studies have demonstrated that various traits, such as loyalty to

organizations, work values, work motivators, and desired relationship with a boss diverge

across the generations, and for this reason generational cohort theory is often used to

explain these differences (D’Amato & Herzfeldt, 2008; Edmunds & Turner, 2005).

A generational cohort is a group of individuals similar in age who have

expereienced the same historical events within the same time period (Ryder, 1965).

According to generational cohort theory, important events and social changes in society

affect the values, attitudes, beliefs, and preferences of individuals (Ryder, 1965; Sessa,

Kabacoff, Deal, & Brown, 2007). Therefore, individuals born during a particular time,

who belong to the same cohort, will often share specific tendencies and cognitive styles.

These effects are assumed to continue over time (Jurkiewicz, 2000). Influential incidents

of a generational cohort could be positive or negative and might include traumatic

occurrences such as political events, wars, or armed conflicts. They could also involve

35

economic events – for example, financial market crashes or sizeable shifts in the

distribution of resources. Examples of other epic events that have affected the mindset of

previous generations include landing on the moon, the Civil Rights movement, major

wide-spread health events, and experiences like Woodstock that symbolize an ideology

(Sessa et al., 2007). Significant events that unfold during the earlier years of one’s life are

especially impactful because of how impressionable individuals are when they are very

young.

An alternative to generational cohort theory is the assumption that values,

attitudes, beliefs, and inclinations are primarily a function of age and maturity of

individuals, regardless of their generation. Generational cohort theory differs from this

perspective, suggesting that changes across generations are primarily a function of social

events rather than biological processes (Sessa et al., 2007). As such, cohort theory’s focus

on personal attributes supports the aspirations of this study to examine the relationship

between the millennial cohort, their expectations regarding the presence and levels of

work-related attributes, and what companies can provide Millennials to entice them to

stay.

2.3.1 Definition of the generations. The poulation today is comprised of five

generational cohorts whose ages range from infancy to over 100 years old. Within the

generational literature, the precise demarcation of each generation varies depending on

the author, but usually these variations are only a few years. The five generations are

commonly referred to as the Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials

and Post-Millennials. Because this study focuses on retaining employees within

organizations, the Traditionalists and the post-millennial generation will not be discussed

36

in detail. The youngest Traditionalists are 71 years old and have exited, or are in the

process of exiting, the U.S. workforce. The oldest members of the post-millennial

generation are 16 years old and have not yet entered the workforce on a full-time basis.

However, the discussion of Baby Boomers, Generation X, and especially Millennials is

robust, as these are the generational cohorts that comprise 97% of the U.S. labor force

today (Fry, 2015).

Each generational cohort possesses different values, personalities, and skills based

on its experiences with life-defining events. These differences are most notable in the

workplace, where generational attitudes, values, and skills impact workplace

performance. Within the investigation of each generation, the birth range, characteristics,

and work preferences for each group are discussed in an attempt to better understand the

similarities and differences among the cohorts. After each generation is discussed

individually, the Baby Boomer, Generation X, and Millennial generations are compared

and contrasted with respect to work values and expectations concerning work-related

attributes.

2.3.2 The Traditionalist Generation. Employees born between 1925 and 1945

belong to the Traditionalist Generation (Gallup, 2016; Lancaster & Stillman, 2010) and

are also referred to as “Veterans” or the “Silent Generation” (Costanza et al., 2012; Parry

& Urwin, 2011). Today, only 3.7 million members of this cohort remain in the U.S.

workforce, and they account for just 2% of U.S. workers (Fry, 2015). This group, the

eldest generation represented in today’s workforce, was affected by several significant

world events, notably World War II and the Great Depression (Buahene & Kovary,

2003). They grew up in tough times where even the necessities of life - food, clothing,

37

and money - were scarce. The hardship of the war and the Great Depression had an

influence on the Traditionalists’ values, and as a result, many members of this group were

selfless with respect to their jobs, family, friends and communities (Cekada, 2012). This

group learned the value of hard work and followed rules in their working lives. Some of

the core values of this generation that carried over into their work ethic include loyalty,

discipline, respect for authority, dedication, and a desire to learn and gain knowledge

(Buahene & Kovary, 2003; Cekada, 2012).

2.3.3 The Baby Boomer Generation. Employees born between 1946 and 1964

belong to the Baby Boomer Generation (Buahene & Kovary, 2003; Caraher, 2014;

Cekada, 2012; Gallup, 2016; Howe & Strauss, 1991; Lancaster & Stillman, 2010) and are

also referred to as the “Thirteenths,” or the “Lost Generation” (Parry & Urwin, 2011).

There are 44.6 million members of this cohort in the U.S. workforce, accounting for 29%

of U.S. workers (Fry, 2015). The values and core beliefs of this cohort were shaped by

the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights movement, Watergate, the space race, the sexual

revolution, and Woodstock (Buahene & Kovary, 2003). According to Scheef and

Thielfoldt (2014), the Baby Boomer generation grew up during a period of economic

success, suburban prosperity with a strong family unit, thanks in large part to their

parents’ strong work ethic and self-sacrificing behavior. With this support and

confidence, once they entered the workforce, Baby Boomers made an impact

immediately. The members of this cohort are competitive, extremely hard working,

success-oriented, and loyal to their careers (Bell & Griffin, 2013; Scheef & Thielfoldt,

2003). With respect to their work attitudes, Baby Boomers are viewed as workaholics

who are “living to work” and who thrive on challenging work assignments (Callanan &

38

Greenhaus, 2008). Baby Boomers believe in company loyalty and lifetime employment

(McGuire, Todnem, & Hutchings, 2007); hence, they are more likely to stay with an

employer and not change jobs as frequently as other generations.

2.3.4 Generation X. Employees born between 1965 and 1979 belong to

Generation X (Caraher, 2014; Cekada, 2012; Gallup, 2016) and are also referred to as

“Baby Busters” or “Twentysomethings” (Parry & Urwin, 2011). Additionally, they are

sometimes labeled as the “lost” generation because this generation did not attract the

same level of attention from parents, teachers, government, or the media as Baby

Boomers did (Buahene & Kovary, 2003). This cohort is the second largest contributor to

the U.S. work force – with 52.7 million members representing 34% of the total U.S.

workers (Fry, 2015). This generation grew up in the shadow of the baby boom and due to

the hard-working, success-seeking mentality of the Baby Boomers; Generation X grew

up in a new type of environment. Unlike their own mothers, most Baby Boomer moms of

Generation X worked while their children were young. Divorce rates increased, and

children of this generation became “latchkey kids,” aptly named because they were often

home without adult supervision for some part of the day (Galambos & Garbarino, 1982).

Because members of this generational cohort did not have their parents fully involved in

their lives, they value work/life balance, choosing to spend time with their family and

having leisure time to enjoy (Bell & Griffin, 2013; Twenge, Campbell, Hoffman, &

Lance, 2010). Additionally, Generation X often saw their parents face job insecurity and

layoffs, so as they entered the workforce, they were skeptical and distrusting of their

employers (Bell & Griffin, 2013; Cekada, 2012; Lyons & Kuron, 2013). Therefore,

39

members of this generation do not hold the loyalty or commitment to a company that

previous generations did (Cekada, 2012).

2.3.5 The Millennial Generation. Employees born between 1980 and 2000

belong to the millennial generation (Caraher, 2015; De Hauw & De Vos, 2010; Deal &

Levenson, 2016; Hartman & McCambridge, 2011; Houck, 2011; Legas & Sims, 2011;

Rainer & Rainer, 2011) and are also called “Generation Y,” the “Entitled Generation,”

the “Net Generation,” “Nexters,” or “Echo Boomers” (Buahene & Kovary, 2003;

Cekada, 2012). They are also sometimes negatively referred to as “Slackers,” “Trophy

Kids,” “Digital Natives,” and the “Net Gen” (Chaudhuri & Ghosh, 2012). This cohort

contributes the largest number of workers, 53.5 million, to the U.S. workforce and

represents 34% of all U.S. workers (Fry, 2015). If Generation X was the ‘lost’ generation,

then this group could be considered the ‘found’ generation because, according to Zemke,

Raines, and Filipczak (2000), two-thirds of this generation were planned for and wanted

by their parents, who were typically very involved in the lives of their children.

Millennials have grown up leading overscheduled lives (Bell & Griffin, 2013), with

pressure to achieve as their parents obsessed over their accomplishments. They have

grown up surrounded by technology with video games, internet connectivity, social

media, and friends instantly accessible through the click of a few buttons on their mobile

phones. As a generation, Millennials have been encouraged to build closer relationships

with their parents, teachers, and coaches; as a result, they expect to develop personal

relationships with their supervisors and co-workers as well (Hershatter & Epstein, 2010).

Millennials have been categorized as spoiled, entitled, and impatient; this is likely

due to the way they were parented (Deal & Levenson, 2016). As children, Millennials

40

were encouraged to take part in many extracurricular activities and to take leadership

roles in school associations and clubs. All of their influential adult role models – parents,

teachers, advisors, and coaches – encouraged Millennials to collaborate with them rather

than simply follow their directives (Lancaster & Stillman, 2010). This led to Millennials

feeling confident and empowered, and expecting to not only have a voice and be heard

(Lancaster & Stillman, 2010), but for their ideas to be taken seriously (Caraher, 2014).

Therefore, it is no surprise that Millennials have high expectations to participate in

decision making.

This group has been affected by several significant world events, including

political and economic instability. For example, they have seen large multi-national

companies (such as Enron and MCI) exposed for their greed and corruption and

subsequently go out of business, leaving many people unemployed and without

retirement benefits. They have seen wide swings in the performance of the global stock

markets, double digit unemployment rates, and they witnessed the unthinkable 9/11

terrorists’ attacks on U.S. citizens.

2.3.6 The Post-Millennial Generation. These individuals were born after 2000,

and since the oldest members of this cohort are just turning 17, they have not yet entered

the adult U.S. workforce as full-time employees (Fry, 2015). This generation has also

been referred to as “Generation Z” (Homan, 2015; Horovitz, 2012), the “iGeneration“

(Rosen, 2010), and the “Homeland Generation” (Strauss & Howe, 1997). Since they are

not currently part of the U.S. workforce, this group will not be discussed or considered

within this study.

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2.3.7 Comparison of the generations. Members of a generational cohort,

through shared experiences, tend to have similar values, motivators, preferences, and

priorities that they bring to work. Companies can keep these individuals engaged,

motivated, and desirous of staying with the organization by understanding what is

important to them. A comparison of the work values and preferences of the three key

generational cohorts that collectively comprise 97% of today’s U.S. workforce (Fry,

2015) is shown in Table 2. The defining characteristics indicated for each generational

cohort have emerged based on the events and experiences shared throughout their lives,

as discussed above.

Table 2: Work Values and Preferences by Generation

Work Values and Preferences by Generation

Characteristic Baby Boomers Generation X Millennials Work Values Success-oriented,

loyal to career Seek work/life balance

Self-reliant and team- oriented

Work Motivators Appreciation Autonomy Making a difference Relationship with Boss

Love/hate Boss is teacher Boss is mentor

View on Technology Mixed Tool Critical part of life Priorities Work Work/Family Social causes/family This generation works best when pursuing

Personal achievement Team-oriented goals

Career advancement and working in teams

Work style Sequential tasks Multitask Multitask Feedback preference Annually well-

documented Frequent feedback Instant feedback

Career Goals Build a stellar career Build a portable career

Multiple careers simultaneously

Outlook Optimistic Skeptical Hopeful Rules Change the rules Question the rules Norms or what rules?Most Valued Reward

Flexible work/retirement options

Flexible work, Professional Development

Respect & Financial Security

Note: Adapted from Bell & Griffin, 2013.

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2.3.8 Comparison of engagement levels. Employee engagement is the key to

performance and retention (Corporate Leadership Council, 2004), and therefore,

companies spend a great deal of time, effort, and money trying to increase it. Highly

committed employees are 87% less likely to leave than employees with low levels of

commitment (Corporate Leadership Council, 2004). With this frame of reference, it is

important to investigate engagement levels and how they vary across the generations. In

their 2016 study of Millennials, the Gallup (2016) organization compared this generation

to the other generations that make up the U.S. workforce to assess levels of employee

engagement in the workplace. Their findings were that 29% of Millennials reported being

engaged; this compared to 32% for Generation X, 33% for Baby Boomers, and 45% for

Traditionalists. Gallup (2016) also measured those who were not engaged, and

Millennials reported the highest level of disengagement at 55%, followed by Generation

X at 50%, Baby Boomers 48%, and Traditionalists 41%. These findings are significant -

by not engaging millennial workers, companies are missing out on the opportunity to

leverage the skills and knowledge of this group and run the risk of having them leave

their organization in a time when having enough employees to meet their needs will be

difficult (Hartman, 2016).

2.3.9 Generational job seekers. One way to determine what is important to an

employee or a group of employees is to consider what they are looking for when

considering a new job. Gallup (2016) found that job-seekers were looking for several key

work-related attributes, and that the importance of these attributes varied by generation.

The attributes and relative importance to each of the generations are highlighted in Table

3. The top five attributes identified by Gallup (2016) as extremely important to

43

Millennials in order of importance were (1) opportunities to learn and grow, (2) quality of

manager, (3) quality of the company’s management, (4) interest in type of work, and (5)

opportunities for advancement. Opportunities to learn and grow and opportunities for

advancement refer to Millennials’ expectations that the company will invest in their

growth and development, which will lead to promotions. Additionally, Millennials want

to work for a great boss and an organization whose overall management team is

competent and presents themselves well (Jamieson, Kirk, & Andrew, 2013; Montana &

Petit, 2008; Uen, Wu, & Huang, 2009). Millennials need to be personally connected to

the company for which they work and, therefore, having an interest in the type of work

they do is high on their list of priorities. The scores for opportunities to learn and grow,

interest in type of work, and opportunities for advancement were higher for Millennials

then either Generation X or Baby Boomers (Gallup, 2016).

Table 3: Importance of Work-related Attributes

Importance of Work-Related Attributes

Millennials Generation X Baby Boomers Opportunities to learn and grow 59% 44% 41% Quality of manager 58% 50% 60% Quality of management 58% 52% 60% Interest in type of work 58% 57% 43% Opportunities for advancement 50% 42% 40%

Note: Adapted from How Millennials Want to Work and Live, Gallup, 2016

2.3.10 How Millennials are different. Millennials are, and will continue to be, a

key to filling the employment gap caused by previous generations exiting the workforce

because they comprise the largest group of workers in the U.S. workforce (Fry, 2015).

Therefore, companies have been focused on identifying and recruiting millennial

employees. However, Millennials are increasingly mobile and do not stay with

companies for long; the average tenure of Millennial employees with a company in their

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first job is only 1 ½ years (Suleman & Nelson, 2011). Among all Millennials who leave

an organization, the median tenure is only 1.8 years (Ware, 2014). The Bureau of Labor

Statistics reported that from 2006 to 2016, the average employee between the ages of 20

and 24 stayed with an organization for 1.3 years, whereas the average employee between

the ages of 25 and 34 stayed with an organization for approximately 3 years. Ng,

Schweitzer, and Lyons (2010) opined that this high level of turnover for Millennials was

because they preferred multiple job movements. By changing jobs frequently, Millennials

believe they can get ahead quicker and make the level of salary they feel they deserve.

Others suggest that this sense of entitlement in Millennials is linked to their being

impatient about advancement, perhaps fueled by having been raised in an environment of

hyper support with rewards for even the smallest accomplishments (Tulgan, 2016).

2.4 Theoretical Lens 2: Psychological Contract Theory

Psychological contracts are an important consideration in the employee-employer

relationship and have been described as “individual beliefs in a reciprocal obligation

between the individual and the organization” (Rousseau, 1989, p. 121). In organizational

research, the typical parties involved in a psychological contract are the individual

employee and the organization (Argyris, 1960; Levinson, Price, Munden, Mandi, &

Solley, 1962). From the employee perspective, a psychological contract describes what

the employee expects to receive from the employer in return for their work output.

Employees first have these beliefs and expectations during the pre-employment stage,

more specifically referred to as an “anticipatory psychological contract” (De Hauw & De

Vos, 2010; Rousseau, 1990). Employees continue to hold these expectations throughout

45

their employment with an organization, though their expectations will likely change and

evolve.

Although most often cited, Rousseau was not the originator of the term

psychological contract; the concept was first introduced by Argyris (1960) in describing

the evolving relationship between shop foremen and employees. However, in

contemporary research, Rousseau (1989)advanced the concept, which describes the

relationship between the employee and their employer. A psychological contract also

defines the work to be done. This agreement is separate and apart from the formal written

contract of employment which, for the most part, only identifies mutual duties and

responsibilities in a generalized form.

Psychological contracts are made up of transactional obligations and relational

obligations, both of which are important to employees (Rousseau, 1995). The

transactional expectations that employees hold are for adequate compensation, safe

working conditions, and a guarantee of short term employment in exchange for

fulfillment of their contractual work obligation (Rousseau, 1995). The relational

expectations involve training, development, fair treatment, and long-term job security,

again in exchange for the employee satisfactorily fulfilling their job duties.

These promises often develop during recruiting, orientation, and subsequent

interaction with coworkers and supervisors. Therefore, psychological contracts are

naturally subjective, making it difficult for organizations to understand and fulfill them.

In addition, employers do not always take the time to clarify expectations, which lowers

the likelihood of meeting the employees’ expectations, resulting in a breach of the

psychological contract. Ignorance of an employee’s expectations regarding work-related

46

attributes is just one form of breach of the psychological contract. Another breach

involves an employer knowing what an employee expects but not delivering or only

partially meeting the employee’s expectations. Not honoring a commitment to the

employee results in more than an unfulfilled promise; it also leads to lower trust in the

organization (Robinson, 1996). When an organization fails to fulfill its promises,

employees can respond in three ways: increased intention to quit, neglect of in-role job

duties, and/or decreased organizational citizenship behaviors (Turnley & Feldman, 2000).

Additionally, if an employee feels that the promises made by the employer are not

honored, they will likely become dissatisfied, not feel valued (Porter & Steers, 1973), and

their intention to leave the company to work for another that will meet their expectations

regarding work-related attributes will increase.

In summary, Millennials have many expectations of both the company and the

supervisor for whom they work (De Hauw & De Vos, 2010). They expect high salaries,

promotions soon after they join the organization, professional and personal development,

the opportunity to have sufficient work/life balance, and flexibility in their job.

Millennials also expect to have fulfilling personal relationships with their supervisor and

co-workers and to do work that makes a difference within their organization. Many of

these expectations would not be in their formal, written job offer and hence comprise a

psychological contract with the person who hired them and the overall organization. If

their immediate manager were to leave or move on, the employee would still expect the

organization to honor this contract.

The concept of a psychological contract is tied to the individual’s commitment to

the organization. Commitment to the organization, according to Mowday, Porter and

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Steers (1982), can be characterized by three factors – acceptance of the organization’s

culture and values, willingness to exert extra effort on behalf of the organization, and

willingness to remain an employee of the organization. The willingness to stay factor is

of most interest with respect to this study because it is closely linked to the dependent

variable under investigation – an employee’s, specifically a millennial employee’s,

intention to stay.

Understanding the impact of psychological contract theory on employees’ work

expectations is crucially important to this study. Millennials have high expectations of the

work-related attributes of salary, advancement, development, work/life balance, and

personal relationships at work, to name just a few. If these expectations are not met,

Millennials may consider it a violation of the psychological contract they believe they

have with their employer, which “can have detrimental effects on a number of outcomes”

(De Hauw & De Vos, 2010, p. 293). Since the list of Millennials’ work expectations is

long and the components costly, organizations must develop and offer creative and

inexpensive ways to successfully manage Millennials’ expectations.

2.4.1 Work-related attributes. Work-related attributes are what employees

receive in return for their employment contributions with a specific employer. This

construct is drawn from the inducements or expectations in the psychological contract

between the employee and employer (De Hauw & De Vos, 2010). There are many types

of work-related attributes, some financial and others non-financial. These include, but are

not limited to, salary, benefits, training, professional development, career advancement,

job security, work/life balance, social connections, and meaningful work. The value and

impact of work-related attributes vary across individuals and generations; attributes that

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may be valued by a member of the Baby Boomer Generation might not be valued by a

member of the millennial generation. Since this study focuses primarily on Millennials, it

is important to understand their expectations regarding work-related attributes.

2.4.2 Millennials’ expectations regarding work-related attributes. Millennials,

like all employees, have specific expectations of what they want from their careers and

what they hope to receive in return for their employment with a specific organization.

These expectations around work-related attributes incorporate many of the same

expectations of other generations, including good salary, benefits, training, professional

development, career advancement, and job security. But Millennials have other

expectations that may be a direct result of how they were raised, such as the need for

work/life balance, accelerated promotion and advancement, social connections at work,

and meaningful work. Such expectations of Millennial employees differ from other

generations (Bell & Griffin, 2013; Gallup, 2016), and it is important for company leaders

to understand this divergence. Understanding the job expectations of Millennials can help

a company determine the offerings both extrinsic and intrinsic that would best meet the

needs of these employees (Bannon, Ford, & Meltzer, 2011) and thus increase the

likelihood of their remaining with the company for a longer period of time.

2.4.3 Overall compensation. Salary is an important factor to all employees, and

Millennials are no exception (Gallup, 2016). According to Gallup (2016), nearly half

(48%) of Millennials say that overall compensation is extremely important. There are

differences of opinion regarding how important salary is to Millennials. Some of the

literature indicates salary is the single most important factor to Millennials and that the

level of pay and financial benefits drive Millennials’ choice of employers more than

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anything else (Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, 2016b). Others claim that while pay is

important, different work-related attributes are more important to Millennials, such as

working in a job and for a company where the work is meaningful and contributes to

society (Rawlins, Indvik, & Johnson, 2008). Millennials are not interested in money for

materialistic purposes or what it can buy, as were the Baby Boomers. Rather, Millennials

are interested in the flexibility and social connectivity that it provides (Rainer & Rainer,

2011). They want good salaries so that they can travel and pay for their mobile phones

and service so that they can stay connected to family and friends.

Salary is likely of key importance to Millennials because of the financial situation

that most Millennials find themselves in. Debt is a significant concern for Millennials

(Pew Research Center, 2014), as many are saddled with high levels of student loans

(Gallup, 2016) and feel the pressure of making these payments for many years after they

leave school. In fact, 46% of the Millennials surveyed by Deal & Levenson (2016) say

that financial debt affects their career decisions, which is why they are so focused on

compensation. Millennials’ need to make enough money to pay off their student loans

quickly becomes a principal driver for their career decisions (Deal & Levenson, 2016).

Millennials feel that once these debts are paid off, they can save enough money to buy a

home and still have discretionary income to pursue leisure activities and personal

interests (Deal & Levenson, 2016). Additionally, many Millennials see their parents

being downsized or made redundant as well as increasing numbers of homeless people.

The fear of that happening to them likely drives them to seek a salary large enough to

protect themselves.

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2.4.4 Career advancement and promotion. One job expectation of Millennials

frequently mentioned in the literature is the opportunity for career advancement (Bell &

Griffin, 2013; Deal & Levenson, 2016; Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, 2016b; Erickson,

2009; Gallup, 2016; Solnet & Hood, 2008; Solnet et al., 2012; Suleman & Nelson, 2011;

Wong, Gardiner, Lang, & Coulon, 2008). At ease with new technology and the notion of

constant change, Millennials have come to expect everything immediately, including

challenging career opportunities. Millennials desire and expect to be promoted quickly

within their organizations (Erickson, 2009; Lau, Chan, Tai, & Ng, 2010; Ng et al., 2010).

Pooley (2006) reiterated this assertion, suggesting that Millennials are so impatient for

advancement that they are not willing to wait more than two years to get promoted.

Pooley (2006) went on to assert that Millennials are willing to leave a company for

another opportunity that promises a faster track to advancement. This desire for quick

advancement often leads to the criticism that Millennials come into organizations feeling

‘entitled’ not willing to pay their dues or put in the time necessary to earn a promotion

(Deal & Levenson, 2016; Ferri-Reed, 2012; Lancaster & Stillman, 2010). If this desire

for fast advancement is not fulfilled, it could lead to dissatisfaction and an increased

intention to leave the organization.

2.4.5 Recognition. Recognition is a special type of feedback that is important to

Millennials (Hershatter & Epstein, 2010; Ng et al., 2010). Being recognized for their

work and contributions is important to Millennials and research has demonstrated that

sufficient attention and recognition can contribute to Millennial loyalty and intention to

stay (Hershatter & Epstein, 2010; Ng et al., 2010). Recognition can come in the form of

both formal recognition such as awards, promotions, letters of commendation; and

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informal recognition such as verbal praise, or highlighting an individual’s

accomplishment in a team or company meeting. According to Deal and Levenson (2016),

Millennials would like rewards and recognition more frequently than organizations

typically offer them. They identified that Millennials frequently receive rewards or

recognition annually but would prefer to receive them monthly or quarterly.

2.4.6 Training and development. Millennials do not feel their skills are being

fully developed by their current employers, a key reason why many leave a company for

other opportunities (Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, 2016b). Training and development are

important to Millennials, and they expect to receive both from the companies for which

they work. A significant amount of published literature identifies professional

development as one of the most important job-related attributes for Millennials (Caraher,

2014; Deal & Levenson, 2016; Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, 2016b; Rainer & Rainer,

2011). A predominant number of Millennials consider professional or career growth and

development opportunities as extremely important (Gallup, 2016), as they view such

opportunities as the vehicle to achieve promotions and salary increases more quickly.

2.4.7 Coaching and frequent feedback. With respect to how they are managed,

Millennials do not want bosses, they want coaches (Brack, 2012; Gallup, 2016).

Millennials care about having managers who can coach them, helping them identify and

build their strengths. They see coaching and mentoring from their boss as a large part of

their professional development, which is extremely important to them. Regarding the

coaching they expect to receive, Millennials desire more frequent feedback (Bannon et

al., 2011; Gallup, 2016; Kilber, Barclay, & Ohmer, 2014) on their performance than

generations before them (Caraher, 2014; Hays, 2014; Twenge, Campbell, & Freeman,

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2012) . Within this feedback, Millennials expect their manager to focus on their strengths

and what they are doing well (Gallup, 2016) to ensure that they are on a linear

progressive path which will lead to them ascending to the next level (Epstein & Howes,

2008). Additionally, Millennials want relevant feedback about their performance

frequently enough so they can act on it (Rainer & Rainer, 2011). Constant feedback and

performance readjustments are ways Millennials have learned to stay on track during

times of change. “Feedback and praise serve as reinforcement as well as a corrective

mechanism for this generation” (Suleman & Nelson, 2011, p. 42).

Millennials are often described as needy because they want to know how they are

doing on a regular basis (Deal & Levenson, 2016). This need for ongoing feedback is

likely attributable to their pre-employment experiences where they received frequent

feedback. In school and then through college, grades on papers, tests, and quizzes

provided ongoing feedback. During non-school time, feedback was frequent as well, from

activities such as playing sports and interacting with friends (either face-to-face or

virtually) (Deal & Levenson, 2016, p. 53). This need for ongoing, frequent, and

supportive feedback could be related to their use of, prowess with, and dependency on,

technology. Finally, with respect to the timing of feedback, Millennials want it monthly

or more frequently (daily or weekly), and only 23% say they get feedback that often

(Rainer & Rainer, 2011).

2.4.8 Meaningful work experiences. Millennials desire work that is meaningful,

makes a difference (Hewlett, Sherbin, & Sumberg, 2009; Ng et al., 2010), and benefits

society in some way (Kapoor & Solomon, 2011). Therefore, this need for meaning

perhaps drives their desire to work for a company that, in their mind, is doing important

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work that makes society a better place. Research has demonstrated that performing

meaningful work can contribute to Millennial loyalty and retention (Lancaster &

Stillman, 2010; Ng et al., 2010). In their work, Rawlins, et al. (2008) found that for

Millennials, doing meaningful work was more important than the salary they earned.

Broadly speaking, Millennials want to do work they feel is meaningful with organizations

they believe are good corporate citizens (Deal & Levenson, 2016). What this means will

likely vary from one Millennial to another, but companies need to invest the time to

determine how to leverage Millennials' desire for meaningfulness.

2.4.9 Flexibility/flexible work hours. Millennials desire freedom, flexibility and

variety in their job. With regard to performing their job, Millennials value the freedom to

be creative in solving problems and performing tasks in their own way, and in the way

they think is best (Holt, Marques, & Way, 2012; Ozcelik, 2015). The importance of

flexibility to Millennials was highlighted by Rainer and Rainer (2011), who found that

Millennials value flexibility in their work almost as much as money. Given the

importance that earning a high salary has to Millennials, this desire for flexibility is

significant. There are a number of other studies that highlight the importance of

flexibility to Millennials (Bell & Griffin, 2013; Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, 2016b;

Terjesen, Vinnicombe, & Freeman, 2007). This desire for flexibility is also likely related

to another key job expectation that Millennials have – work/life balance.

2.4.10 Work/life balance. Work/life balance is extremely important to the

millennial generation (Holt et al.,2012),. In their work, Rainer & Rainer, 2011) found that

having good work/life balance was the number one factor in job selection for

Millennials., perhaps due to the Millennials seeing their parents working long hours,

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prioritizing work over family, being extremely loyal to their employer yet still getting

laid off and divorced (Ng et al., 2010). In addition, escalating terrorism and the 9/11

attack on U.S. soil may have heightened Millennials’ awareness of their own mortality

and that they must appreciate and enjoy their families more. In addition, Millennials tend

to have close relationships with their parents and want to spend time with them. Perhaps

for some or all of these reasons, this generation values work/life balance, greatly

preferring to spend time with their family and having leisure time to enjoy (Bell &

Griffin, 2013; Twenge et al., 2010).

2.4.11 Personal relationship with Supervisor / co-workers. Personal

relationships are very important to Millennials, and they have a strong need to feel

connected to someone (Hays, 2014; Lyons et al., 2012). This need carries over to their

working life and can be satisfied by having a meaningful relationship with their

supervisor or co-workers, or both. Though they love technology, Millennials are high

touch and “relational beyond their immediate families” (Rainer & Rainer, 2011, p. 19),

meaning they seek healthy relationships at work and beyond. Therefore, despite the

importance of having easy access to the latest technology at their workplace, the human

aspect of work is even more important to them. Feeling personally connected to the

company they work for is important to Millennials (Rainer & Rainer, 2011). If they do

not feel emotionally connected to their work, whether through workplace friends, team

members, or their boss, they are more likely to consider leaving the company. A

connection, with a boss who they feel cares about them, or colleagues with whom they

have things in common and can relate to, are important to Millennials. Wong et al. (2008)

referred to this as a desire for social connectedness. This desire to be connected carries

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over to Millennials’ attitudes about collaboration and working in teams, which they enjoy

(Tews, Michel, Xu, & Drost, 2015). Working closely with others in a team environment

reminds them of the comfortable and safe feelings they had while working in teams when

they were younger, both in school and out of school.

Hershatter and Epstein (2010) found that Millennials expect to develop a

personal relationship with their superiors at work, which was echoed in the Gallup (2016)

study where Millennials indicated that conversations with their boss “must be about more

than work” (Gallup, 2016, p. 38) . While Millennials do not always feel comfortable

discussing life outside of work with their manager, those who feel they can talk with their

manager about non-work-related issues plan to stay with their current organization

(Gallup, 2016). Their relationships with their bosses are just as important to Millennials

as their relationships with their friends at work or the teams of which they are a part

(Gallup, 2016), but often times this need is not being met. In their study of Millennials,

Rainer and Rainer (2011) found that 20 to 40% of Millennials do not feel as if their

managers are meeting their needs for this connection and sense of community.

2.4.12 Workplace fun. Millennials expect and desire their work to be

challenging and fun (Caraher, 2014; Rainer & Rainer, 2011); however, this is not fun for

fun’s sake. Millennials desire to make the act of performing their job fun, believing they

can be more productive at work if they can have a little fun along the way (Lancaster and

Stillman, 2010). The millennial generation grew up having fun when learning in school.

Teachers often used fun and learning through play to engage and interest them. This

phenomenon has been extended into the workplace through gamification as a way to aid

and enhance adult learning. Having fun at work has been found to positively impact job

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satisfaction and diminish Millennials’ intention to leave an organization (Tews, Michel,

& Stafford, 2013). Additionally, Tews et al (2015) found that Millennial job seekers were

more attracted to workplaces involving fun than those that just offered attractive

compensation packages and promising advancement opportunities. Rainer and Rainer

(2011) supported this desire for fun on the part of Millennials, saying having fun at work

was among the top five work-related attributes in job selection for Millennials. Working

in teams is one source of fun at work for Millennials (Myers & Sadaghiani, 2010).

Companies wishing to retain their millennial workers should therefore make sure that

they provide an opportunity for Millennials to have fun at work, such as incorporating

team-building into the work environment.

2.4.13 Job security. Millennials want stability for their job and paycheck, and

Gallup (2016) found that over half of Millennials (53%) identified job security as very

important to them. Similarly, Guillot-Soulez & Soulez (2014) confirmed in their study

that Millennials graduating college and entering the work force, on the whole, had a

preference for job security. According to Hershatter & Epstein (2010), Millennials

believe that their employers should provide job security. This was also found to be true

by Murphy, Gibson, and Greenwood (2010), who determined that security was in the top

five most valued attributes for Millennials. While Millennials enter the workforce with

low expectations regarding job security, they do value job security highly (“Focus on

Millennials,” 2016). Millennials often view job security as feeling confident that they will

be able to keep their positions during tough economic times, rather than seeing job

security as working for the same company for 25 years and retiring with a company paid

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pension (Kowske et al., 2010). Still other studies found Millennials more in need of job

security than previous generations (Smola & Sutton, 2002; Twenge et al., 2010).

2.4.14 Strong leadership. According to their study on Millennials, Gallup

(2016) found that 58% of Millennials said that the quality of a company’s management /

leadership is extremely important to them and that they wanted to work for a company

where they can be proud of how the leaders present and conduct themselves. Millennials

want to be able to trust company leadership and have confidence in the direction in which

it is steering the company. This dimension of quality of leadership is tied closely to the

overall reputation of the company. In addition, the nature and tone of the communication

coming from leadership is important to Millennials. Good communication will help

Millennials understand their role in the organization, and may break down some of the

distrust Millennials have of big business (Brack, 2012).

2.4.15 Having a say. Millennials expect to have more involvement in decision-

making, a flat hierarchy, and a lack of formality regarding status and structure (Myers &

Sadaghiani, 2010). They also expect access to senior leadership (Hershatter & Epstein,

2010). Unlike their older colleagues, who may have been expected to hold their tongues

and do what was asked of them, Millennials not only want and expect to be heard

(Hartman & McCambridge, 2011) but expect that their ideas will be taken seriously

(Caraher, 2014). They also expect open communication from their supervisors and

managers, even about matters normally reserved for more senior employees (Gursoy,

Chi, & Karadag, 2013; Martin, 2005).

2.4.16 Study relevance to organizations. With respect to this study, a company

must understand the characteristics and work preferences of their employees and appeal

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to what is important to retain their employees. Millennials are a key to filling the

employment gap but they typically leave companies much more quickly than employees

from previous generations. Therefore, it is crucial for managers to understand what

Millennials expect and provide it to them. In so doing, managers can satisfy and retain

these employees, thereby taking advantage of their talents and skills (Bannon et al.,

2011). Preventing the loss of valuable human capital and the company-specific

knowledge and skills they hold is just one key reason for retaining employees. There are

also a significant number of financial benefits to retaining employees. These include

higher productivity, lower recruiting and training costs, fewer temporary employee costs

to cover for the vacancy, and the forgone opportunity costs associated with managers

having to replace the employee instead of running the business. These costs can be

categorized into opportunity costs and direct costs. Opportunity costs include the

management time associated with recruitment, selection, induction, onboarding, training,

and administration. Direct costs associated with employee turnover include

advertisements, recruiter agencies (recruiter) fees, and the costs of interviewing and

running assessments.

Millennials have a higher likelihood of changing jobs, making it vital for

organizations to understand them and provide the work-related attributes that Millennials

expect. By so doing, companies can increase the probability of keeping them and keeping

them longer. On the flip side, Millennials’ enthusiasm to look for better opportunities

means organizations that understand what is important to Millennials can be more

successful in attracting them (Gallup, 2016). As the shortage of talent increases,

Millennials will continue to be a key to filling this gap for workers in the U.S. Companies

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that know what Millennials are seeking at work and in their careers, will have a

competitive advantage in acquiring them.

2.5 Theoretical Lens 3: Employee Retention, Turnover and Intention to Stay

Employee turnover and retention are important topics facing companies in the

U.S., and turnover continues to command widespread—and now global—attention (Hom,

2011). Employee turnover occurs when employees leave their jobs and must be replaced

(Goud, 2014), which results in costs to the employer from lost productivity, job

advertising costs, training new employees, etc. Companies want to monitor the movement

of employees out of the organization so they can identify and minimize causes of

turnover. Monitoring turnover is an important activity for organizations, and controlling

turnover is one of the many quantitative ways to positively impact an organization’s

bottom line. With respect to the cost associated with turnover, both Gilbert (2011) and

(Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, 2016a) estimate it to be as high as 150% of the lost

employee’s annual salary. As an example, using the 150% cost of turnover from Gilbert

(2011) and Deloitte (2016a), a 500 person company experiencing 10% annual turnover,

which pays its employees an average of $70,000 per year, would experience an annual

turnover cost of $5.25 million.

Turnover is an issue because of lost productivity and increased organizational

costs. Hancock, Allen, Bosco, McDaniel, and Pierce (2013) found a negative relationship

between turnover and organization performance, which was confirmed by Hausknecht

and Trevor (2011). One reason for this negative relationship might be that organizational

performance is impacted by the turnover of talented team members. The loss of skilled

employees can slow reaction time, thereby allowing competition to get an advantage

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(Kiessling, Harvey, & Moeller, 2012). The costs of turnover can be categorized into four

areas: separation of employee (such severance pay, payment of accrued benefits, etc.),

loss of productivity (a new person may take 1 to 2 years to reach the productivity of an

existing person), recruiting costs to find a replacement, and training costs of the new

employee. Another cost is the disengagement and lessened productivity of those

employees who remain with an organization and see employees leaving. Other negative

impacts involve customer service issues, exacerbated by new workers who can make

errors, take longer to solve problems, and disrupt the relationships built between an

organization and its customers (Goud, 2014). A final cost of turnover is the psychological

and emotional impact upon employees who remain after experiencing employees exiting

an organization. There are two types of psychological and emotional impacts that concern

the employees who have not left. One type is survivor guilt - which concerns why they

were lucky enough to get to stay. Survivor guilt, according to Brockner, Grover, Reed,

DeWitt, and O’Malley (1987), describes the psychological reactions including anxiety

about job loss, decreased loyalty to the firm, and guilt feelings regarding departed co-

workers. Survivor guilt involves the remaining employees’ feelings about getting

additional overtime or receiving paychecks when their former co-workers no longer work

at the company.

The second type of psychological and emotional impact on remaining employees

is their envy of seeing departing employees getting to start over, sometimes after

receiving generous severance packages, which causes those who remain to feel more like

victims rather than survivors (Noer, 2009). What these employees are feeling, according

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to organizational psychologists, are the emotional, psychological and physical effects of

remaining employed after other employees have left an organization.

In addition, staff turnover can create insecurity for remaining staff members, who

may begin questioning whether their own job is set to be eliminated. If the turnover was

due primarily to departing employees, remaining staffers might struggle with questions of

why they left and if there are better opportunities. This type of insecurity can cause

employees to be less efficient and spend an undue amount of time questioning the state of

the company as they may attribute turnover to the nature of the workplace (Hom &

Griffeth, 1995; Hom, Lee, & Griffeth, 2012). These and other social and human capital

costs can often be far greater than the salary of the replacement employee, which in most

cases is essentially the same as the salary of the departing workers (Hancock et al., 2013).

Retention, the decision of an employee to stay with their current employer, is

preceded by an employee’s intention to stay. Therefore, the intention to stay construct is

often viewed as the opposite of intention to leave and is usually considered in the realm

of employee retention and turnover. An employee leaving a company is not unusual and

not unexpected; during their 20 – 30 year working career, workers will typically change

jobs several times. Millennials, on the other hand, change jobs much more frequently and

often do not stay at their employers long. According to Adkins (2016), Millennials

change jobs four times in their first decade out of college. That is nearly double the

number of job changes Baby Boomers made in their first ten years out of college (Long,

2016). Therefore, in order to meet their human resource needs, companies must

determine how to retain their millennial employees.

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2.5.1 Categories of turnover. There are two broad categories of turnover:

voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary turnover involves the conscious and purposeful

decision on the part of the employee to leave the organization, while involuntary turnover

generally is a departure that is not the employee’s choice. The U.S. Bureau of Labor

Statistics (2017b), tracks the number of employees who leave organizations and

categorizes these separations into quits, layoffs and discharges, and other separations.

Quits are generally voluntary separations initiated by the employee, and the ‘quits rate’

can serve as a measure of workers’ willingness or ability to leave jobs. Layoffs and

discharges, on the other hand, are involuntary separations initiated by the employer.

Finally, other separations include retirement, death, disability, and transfers to other

locations of the same firm. There are many reasons why workers choose to leave their

jobs voluntarily. According to Yang, Wan and Fu (2012), there are five primary reasons

employees voluntarily leave their jobs:

1. salary and benefits

2. individual emotional conditions

3. company factors

4. responsibilities and work style

5. content of the work

Employees often leave their current employee for financial reasons to increase

their overall compensation, which can include a higher salary or bonus, and/or improved

benefits, such as better health insurance coverage, enhanced retirement/pension options,

and tuition assistance. Other times employees leave their current employers due to

individual emotional conditions, which include stress, burnout, emotional exhaustion,

depersonalization, and reduced confidence in one’s ability to be successful (Maslach,

Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001). A third category of reasons why employees leave is related to

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the company and includes such factors as reputation loss, scandal, change in ownership

leading to uncertainty, and bankruptcy or insolvency. A fourth category includes

responsibilities and work style-- how much or how little responsibility an employee is

entrusted with and how the work actually gets done. This can include whether decisions

are made centrally or locally and whether the work is done in formal, structured meetings

or informal engagements. The final category of reasons why employees leave their

employers involves the actual content of the work, specifically what workers do and how

what they do is changing. As the nature of their work changes, employees may feel

uncertainty and angst, which could lead to dissatisfaction and then departure (Shropshire

& Kadlec, 2012).

For this study, I am most interested in voluntary turnover, especially preventable

voluntary turnover, that which Abelson (1987) refers to as turnover that is

organizationally avoidable. By this he means that if the organization had acted to address

something that was causing the employee to be dissatisfied, then the organization might

have prevented the employee from leaving.

2.5.2 Intention to stay. Intention to stay refers to an employee’s plan to remain

in the present employment relationship, working for their current employer for the

foreseeable future. This is essentially the opposite of intention to leave (Chew & Chan,

2008) and is an inverse concept of turnover intention or intention to quit. Vandenberg

and Nelson (1999) defined employees’ intention to quit as the estimated probability that

an employee would permanently leave their organization at some point in the near future.

Intention to stay is important because it is an indication of whether an employee is at risk

of leaving. If a company knows one of their employees is at risk for leaving, and they

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want this employee to stay, then they can take pro-active steps to address areas of

dissatisfaction for that employee. If these preventative actions are significant enough as

determined by the employee, then it will likely influence the employee to reconsider how

they feel about the organization and, perhaps, decide to stay. Managers are often not

aware that an employee is unhappy and contemplating leaving the organization until it is

too late and the employee has resigned.

2.5.3 Organization challenges. As a result of the competition for skilled

employees, which Chambers, Foulton, Handfield-Jones, Hankin, and Michaels III (1998)

have called a “war for talent”, retention has been a significant problem for managers

(Goud, 2014). Millennials, who by 2020 will represent approximately half of the U.S.

workforce (Mayfield & Mayfield, 2014), are a key to filling this employment gap. In

order to hold on to their important and scarce human capital, companies should use

different retention approaches in managing each generation. Company managers and

their HR partners need to understand what is causing their valuable employees to leave

and provide the incentives needed to prevent them from leaving their organization (Goud,

2014).

2.5.4 Millennial turnover. The relationship between age and retention is

significant when it involves the intention of employees to leave a job (Govaerts, Kyndt,

Dochy, & Baert, 2011). Millennials change jobs and leave companies more frequently

than workers from other generations. Lyons, Schweitzer and Ng (2015) studied the

frequency of job changes per year to compare this phenomenon across generations, and

they found that Millennials had significantly more career moves annually than other

generations. Millennials experienced twice the number of career moves than Generation

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X, three times the moves of Baby Boomers, and 4.5 times as many as Traditionalists

(Lyons et al., 2015). Millennials are a challenging set of employees to keep, since they

have so many characteristics that differ from past generations (Lyons et al., 2015).

Millennials view employment and their ability to get a job differently due in part to their

higher levels of education, prowess with technology, and the confidence that have

developed throughout their lives (Gilbert, 2011). Furthermore, Millennials are more

prepared to leave when a good opportunity arises, or proactively look for other

opportunities when their needs are not being met within their current organization

(Crainer & Dearlove, 1999). Some of the reasons that turnover is higher for Millennials

than for other generations include the importance that Millennials place on career goals,

especially the time it takes to achieve their aspirations, and other unexpected events, such

as a mentor leaving or a change in the flexibility in their working schedule (Seibert,

Kraimer, Holtom, & Pierotti, 2013). Other contributing factors to high rates of Millennial

turnover include the absence of promotions, job security, challenging and exciting work

tasks, training, and development of new skills (Goud, 2014).

Based on the literature review, including academic and professional contributions,

this study will advance a hypothesis regarding Millennials and the impact that work-

related attributes have on retaining them. It will also consider whether or not employees

from different generations value these work-related attributes differently. The hypothesis

driving this study is identified in the following section.

2.6 Hypotheses

Millennials are quite different from other generational cohorts. These differences

manifest themselves in many ways, including the values and expectations concerning

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their work. Specifically, Millennials have different expectations with respect to the work-

related attributes they want from an employer compared to other generations. While this

phenomenon has been addressed in the literature, it has primarily been a theoretical

discussion. This study investigates it from a practical and empirical approach, studying

working Millennials to determine what work-related attributes a company can provide to

retain them. Additionally, the work-related attributes preferred by Millennials are

compared to those that are important to other generations, in an effort to determine if they

differ. Thus, I offer the following two hypotheses, the null hypothesis which asserts that

there is no difference in how Millennials and other generations value work-related

attributes, and the alternate hypothesis which asserts that Millennials value work-related

attributes differently than other generations. Specifically, these two hypotheses are stated

as:

H0: There is no difference in the value Millennials place on work-related attributes

compared to the value that workers from other generations place on these attributes.

H1: Millennials place different values on work-related attributes than workers from other

generations.

Based on the generational differences in attitudes and preferences among the

generations, I expect to find that the work-related attributes that are important to

Millennials will differ from those that are important to workers from the previous two

generations and, therefore, I expect to reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternate.

2.7 Summary

While in the past the workforce faced the problem of job scarcity, meaning that

there were not enough jobs to go around, today organizations are dealing with the issue of

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talent scarcity (D’Amato & Herzfeldt, 2008). As older generations exit the U.S.

workforce through retirement, new workers are needed to fill these voids. It is expected

that more workers will be needed to feed the growing U.S. economy. Millennials will be

the key to filling both gaps. However, Millennials are different than previous generations

regarding their work expectations and what they are looking for from employers in

exchange for the blood, sweat, and tears they shed on the employer’s behalf. The ability

to retain Millennials will require organizations to understand the needs, wants, and

expectations of this generation. Managers and HR professionals will need to tailor their

policies and procedures relative to work-related attributes to retain Millennials (Gilbert,

2011). With regard to their future staffing needs, organizational leaders that cannot keep

skilled workers within their firm will have to search for talent outside the organization

(Kiessling et al., 2012), and these replacement workers will likely come from the

millennial generation given the large and growing contribution of Millennials to the U.S.

workforce. Therefore, it is in a company’s best interest to focus on satisfying the

expectations of their current millennial employees in an effort to retain them.

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CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

Using the conceptual theories of generational cohort, psychological contract and

employee turnover and intention to stay, this study focuses on identifying the importance

that various work-related attributes play in millennial employees’ intention to stay with a

company. One way to increase the likelihood that Millennials will stay with a company is

to provide them every work-related attribute possible and at generous levels; however,

this is not feasible or sustainable. Therefore, it is imperative for companies to determine

which attributes hold the highest relative importance for Millennials. Employees’

intention to stay is addressed by identifying which specific combination of work-related

attributes might influence Millennials to continue working for their current employer. It

is proposed that the strength of such attributes’ influence upon Millennials’ intention to

stay with their employer may be moderated by the position of the employee (manager vs.

non-manager). This study of the derived preferences for these work-related attributes was

done using conjoint analysis to survey a sample of employees, including Millennials,

Baby Boomers, and Generation Xers, in a health care company headquartered in the

southwestern U.S. The purpose of the study was to empirically assess the relative

importance employees places on key work-related attributes. The goal of this research is

to determine the ideal combination of work-related attributes that are most likely to retain

Millennials and to determine if this combination is different for workers from other

generations.

The first step in any conjoint analysis study is to determine which attributes will

be included in the survey. Because the search of the literature identified many work-

related attributes that are important to workers, and because these vary in strength

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between different generations, I first had to identify which work-related attributes to

include in the conjoint analysis instrument before I could field the survey. Therefore, my

research was conducted in two phases.

Described first are the objective of the study, the targeted population, and the

recruitment methods I used for phase 1, followed by a description of the research design,

the methodology used to collect data, a profile of the participants, and the results. I then

provide a full report of the methods and procedures used in phase 2, - from an overview

of the conjoint method of multivariate analysis to survey design, survey pilot test,

identification of the sample population, participant recruitment, data collection, and data

analysis techniques.

3.1 Independent Variables

The independent variables in the study are the work-related attributes provided to

employees in exchange for their employment; these attributes include monetary and non-

monetary components. After completing the literature review and an initial screening

survey in phase 1 of the research, I narrowed the independent variable list to six specific

work-related attributes. These are (1) career advancement, (2) work/life balance, (3)

company leadership, (4) job security, (5) having a say, and (6) role clarity. Other

variables include demographic information and the employee’s position within the

organization, specifically whether they are a manager of other employees or an individual

contributor.

3.2 Dependent Variable

Within this study, the dependent variable of interest is the job selected by

employees from among multiple sets of hypothetical jobs presented. Employees selected

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the job that would increase their intention to stay with their current employer. The job

that most satisfies the employee would likely lead to increased job satisfaction, thereby

influencing the employee to stay. While intention to stay is an important construct in this

model, as previously mentioned, measuring it is outside the scope of this study.

3.3 Research Design

The research design was a field study focused on workers who were grouped

together into generational cohorts. The generational cohort of prime interest is millennial

workers; their preferences regarding work-related attributes were compared with the

preferences of workers from other generational cohorts. The key benefit of this research

strategy is the realism it affords, because it engages subjects and surveys them about their

existing work experience and expectations. It is less obtrusive to the study participants

because they can respond in their natural setting to questions about which work-related

attributes they would like to receive, that will influence them to stay with their employer

longer. Despite this benefit of realism, field studies do have issues, namely lack of

generalizability to the entire population.

Conjoint analysis was used to determine the relative importance of these work-

related attributes to Millennials; results were compared with the values that other

generations place on the same work-related attributes. Conjoint analysis is a popular

marketing research method primarily used to analyze the trade-offs a consumer is willing

to make when deciding among multi-attributed products or services (Green, Krieger, &

Wind, 2001; Green & Srinivasan, 1978). It presents combinations of attributes that

respondents are asked to evaluate according to their preference. From these evaluations,

the relative importance of each attribute can be determined (Green & Wind, 1975; Kapur

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et al., 2008) based on posterior probabilities (Gilbride et al., 2008). Conjoint analysis has

also been used in the fields of organization behavior and management to investigate and

understand trade-offs made in various aspects of these disciplines. These studies include

how work-related attributes influence candidates’ decisions to join and stay with a

company (Baum & Kabst, 2013), how personality impacts hiring (Moy & Lam, 2004),

and how understanding the strategic consensus process within organizations is vital

(Stepanovich & Mueller, 2002).

3.4 Research Study - Phase 1

The first phase was designed to take the information gathered in the literature

review to determine the key work-related attributes that influence workers’ intention to

stay with their organization. Based on the literature, the 25 work-related attributes found

to be important to Millennials are listed in Appendix B. These attributes were then placed

in an on-line survey executed via Survey Monkey and sent to a convenience sample

sourced using contacts at the University where I am completing my doctoral degree. This

survey ranked the work-related attributes in order of importance. The participants’

responses were collated and grouped according to generational cohort, from most to least

important, and then distilled down to a smaller, more manageable number.

3.4.1 Research design and methodology – phase 1. As mentioned, the first step

in creating a CBC survey is to identify the attributes of the product of interest to the

researcher. The objective of phase 1 of my study, therefore, was to narrow down the 25

work-related attributes listed in Appendix B to the most important ones, which would be

carried into phase 2 of the research. I developed a survey that asked participants to rate

each of 25 work-related attributes on how important they were to the respondent and how

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much they would influence the respondent’s decision to continue working for their

current employer. The respondents were asked to rate each attribute on the following

Likert scale:

1 - Not at all important to me in influencing me to stay with my current company

2 - Somewhat important to me in influencing me to stay with my current company

3 - Important to me in influencing me to stay with my current company

4 - Very important to me in influencing me to stay with my current company

5 - Extremely important to me in influencing me to stay with my current company

3.4.2 Participant profile and recruitment process - phase 1. The sample for

the first phase of the research included 76 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students

from the University of Dallas Gupta College of Business. This sample was chosen

because of the access I have there as a doctoral student and because these groups would

align with the target participant group for the study – workers from different generations

– Millennials, Baby Boomers and Generation X. Having representation from each

generational cohort helped validate, augment, and prioritize the preliminary list of work-

related attributes that had been derived from the extant literature. The undergraduate

students were invited to participate by their instructor who sent them a link to the survey

and offered extra credit for their participation. The graduate students and doctoral

students were invited to participate via email, which included the link to the survey.

Copies of these emails are included in Appendix C (doctoral students) and Appendix D

(graduate students).

3.4.3 Ethical considerations – phase 1. I have been trained in the appropriate

and responsible protocols in dealing with human subjects in research, and my National

Institute of Health (NIH) Office of Extramural Research certificate of training is included

in Appendix E. I utilized this knowledge and training to ensure each participant was

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treated ethically and responsibly. The required University of Dallas Institutional Review

Board (IRB) approval was obtained prior to the research beginning, which is included in

Appendix F. Informed consent was addressed within the survey instrument through the

inclusion of the following statement in the survey instructions – “Your completion of the

survey constitutes your affirmation that your participation is voluntary, that you are at

least 18 years of age, and that you grant the researcher(s) permission to use your data.”

All information was gathered and stored on a password protected computer to safeguard

the anonymity of the source. Additionally, the results of phase 1 are only reported in the

aggregate, and no individual responses are identified.

3.4.4 Data collection – phase 1. Phase 1 of the research was executed via a

Survey Monkey questionnaire in April and May 2017; this survey is attached in

Appendix G. Of the 118 surveys distributed, 76 of them were completed, which is a 64%

response rate. The number of surveys sent out, responses received, and the response rate

from each of these three groups is listed in Table 4. The undergraduate student response

rate of 95% was extremely high, likely because the course instructor offered course extra

credit for participation. The doctoral students’ DBA response rate was 59% while the

graduate student group’s response rate was 44%.

Table 4: Phase 1 Survey Completion Rates

Phase 1 Survey Completion Rates

Group Requests

Sent Completed Responses

Completion Rate

UD undergraduate students 41 39 95% UD doctorate students 22 13 59% UD graduate students 55 24 44% Total 118 76 64%

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The respondents for phase 1 of the study were made up of members from each of

the key generational cohorts – Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials. Of the 76

respondents, 7 (9%) were Baby Boomers, 13 (17%) were Generation X and 56 (74%)

were Millennials. The Millennial group had a larger number of respondents because it

was offered to three classes of undergraduate students who were given extra credit for

participating. The generational cohort composition of this group is identified in Table 5.

Table 5: Phase 1 Participant Survey Composition

Phase 1 Participant Survey Composition

Group

Baby Boomers

Generation X

Millennials

Completed Responses

UD undergraduate students

0 0 39 39

UD DBA doctoral students

6 6 1 13

UD graduate students 1 7 16 24

Total 7 13 56 76

Composition 9% 17% 74% 100%

3.4.5 Results – phase 1. The results from phase 1, tabulated by respondent

group, reveal the top ranked work-related attributes on a scale of 1 to 5 as advancement

(4.27), strong manager (4.16), strong senior leadership (4.14), role clarity (4.05), job

security (3.99), and work/life balance (3.98). The remainder of the top 10 rankings

includes retirement plan (3.93), coaching (3.93), role importance (3.87) and having a say

(3.84). The complete ranking of the attributes is shown in Table 6.

Since the focus of this study is Millennials and how their preferences for work-

related attributes compare to those of workers from other generational cohorts, it is

important to analyze the results through this strategic lens. The work-related attributes are

ranked from 1 – 25 by generation in Table 7. The top ranked attributes for Millennials are

advancement (4.29), strong management (4.13), role clarity (4.13), strong senior

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leadership (4.09), job security (4.02) and work/life balance (3.88). For Generation X, the

top attributes are work/life balance (4.38), strong senior leadership (4.31), having a say

(4.31), strong management (4.27), and advancement (4.23). Finally, for Baby Boomers,

having a say (4.83) is the top ranked attribute followed by role importance (4.50),

work/life balance (4.17), strong management (4.08), strong senior leadership (4.00) and

advancement (4.00).

In order to combine the results from all generations, I calculated the straight-line

average of the rankings by adding the scores for each attribute for the three generations

and then dividing by 3. The resultant ranking of this approach is (1) having a say, (2)

advancement, (3) strong manager, (4) work/life balance, (5) strong senior leadership and

(6) role clarity. The results of this ranking are shown in Table 8.

Another way to get an average score would be to take the overall combined score

for each attribute; however, the high concentration of Millennials (74%) would influence

the average making it closer to the Millennial score, and in the process, discount the

results from the other generations. Therefore, this method was not used.

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Table 6: Phase 1 Results by Respondent Group

Phase 1 Results by Respondent Group

Work-related Attribute Undergrads DBA

Students Graduate Students Total Rank

Advancement 4.31 3.92 4.39 4.27 1 Strong Manager 4.05 3.75 4.57 4.16 2 Strong Sr. Leadership 4.08 3.92 4.36 4.14 3 Role Clarity 4.08 3.50 4.30 4.05 4 Job Security 3.90 3.17 4.57 3.99 5 Work/Life Balance 3.85 3.92 4.22 3.98 6 Retirement Plan 3.77 4.00 4.17 3.93 7 Coaching 3.97 3.33 4.17 3.93 8 Role Importance 3.85 4.00 3.83 3.87 9 Having a say 3.72 4.17 3.87 3.84 10 Salary 3.64 3.67 4.13 3.80 11 Reputable Company 3.69 3.67 4.04 3.80 12 Personal Development 3.69 3.83 3.78 3.74 13 Recognition 3.74 3.58 3.78 3.73 14 Creativity 3.49 4.08 3.65 3.64 15 Supervisor Availability 3.46 3.33 3.96 3.59 16 Fun Place to work 3.74 3.17 3.48 3.57 17 Friendly relationships 3.49 3.08 3.57 3.45 18 Flex Hours 3.15 3.50 3.87 3.43 19 Social Responsibility 3.36 3.25 3.48 3.38 20 Tuition reimbursement 3.23 2.67 3.35 3.18 21 Social connectivity 3.33 3.00 2.91 3.15 22 Giving Back 2.77 2.17 3.04 2.76 23 Student loan assistance 3.08 2.00 2.22 2.64 24

Work from Home 2.54 2.33 2.96 2.64 25

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Table 7: Phase 1 Results by Generation

Phase 1 Results by Generation

Attribute Score Attribute Score Attribute Score

Advancement 4.29 Work/Life Balance 4.38 Having a say 4.83

Strong Management 4.13 Strong Sr. Leadership 4.31 Role Importance 4.50

Role Clarity 4.13 Having a say 4.31 Work/Life Balance 4.17

Strong Sr. Leadership 4.09 Strong Management 4.27 Strong Management 4.08

Job Security 4.04 Advancement 4.23 Strong Sr. Leadership 4.00

Coaching 4.02 Personal Development 4.08 Advancement 4.00

Work/Life Balance 3.88 Retirement Plan 4.08 Supervisor Availability 4.00

Retirement Plan 3.82 Creativity 4.08 Reputable Company 4.00

Role Importance 3.78 Salary 4.00 Salary 4.00

Salary 3.73 Flex Hours 4.00 Creativity 3.83

Personal Development 3.73 Role Clarity 4.00 Role Clarity 3.83

Reputable Company 3.71 Job Security 3.92 Friendly relationships 3.83

Recognition 3.67 Role Importance 3.85 Retirement Plan 3.83

Having a say 3.64 Reputable Company 3.77 Flex Hours 3.67

Fun Place to work 3.62 Social Responsibility 3.77 Coaching 3.67

Supervisor Availability 3.53 Recognition 3.77 Recognition 3.67

Creativity 3.47 Supervisor Availability 3.69 Job Security 3.67

Friendly relationships 3.44 Coaching 3.62 Fun Place to work 3.50

Flex Hours 3.29 Friendly relationships 3.46 Social Responsibility 3.50

Social Responsibility 3.26 Tuition reimbursement 3.38 Personal Development 3.33

Tuition reimbursement 3.18 Fun Place to work 3.38 Social connectivity 3.17

Social connectivity 3.16 Social connectivity 3.08 Tuition reimbursement 2.67

Student loan assistance 2.80 Work from Home 2.92 Giving Back 1.50

Giving Back 2.78 Giving Back 2.85 Work from Home 1.33

Work from Home 2.64 Student loan assistance 2.38 Student loan assistance 1.17

MILLENNIALS (n=55) GENERATION X (n=13) BABY BOOMERS (n=6)

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Table 8: Phase 1 Results by Combined Ranking Method

Phase 1 Results by Combined Ranking Method

COMBINED - straight line average Attribute Score RankHaving a say 4.26 1 Advancement 4.17 2 Strong Manager 4.16 3 Work/Life Balance 4.14 4 Strong Sr. Leadership 4.13 5 Role Clarity 4.04 6 Role Importance 3.99 7 Retirement Plan 3.91 8 Salary 3.91 9 Job Security 3.88 10 Reputable Company 3.83 11 Creativity 3.79 12 Coaching 3.77 13 Supervisor Availability 3.74 14 Personal Development 3.71 15 Recognition 3.70 16 Flex Hours 3.65 17 Friendly relationships 3.58 18 Social Responsibility 3.51 19 Fun Place to work 3.50 20 Social connectivity 3.13 21 Tuition reimbursement 3.08 22 Giving Back 2.38 23 Work from Home 2.30 24 Student loan assistance 2.12 25

3.5 Research Study - Phase 2

Phase 2 of my study consisted of designing and fielding an online choice-based

conjoint (CBC) analysis survey to determine workers’ preferences for jobs that contained

different combinations of work-related attributes. Conjoint analysis is a set of quantitative

tools or techniques that include many different conjoint methods (Orme, 2009), and while

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asking respondents to rank or rate hypothetical product profiles has been a common

conjoint approach in market research, I chose to use CBC analysis for my study. The use

of CBC methodology is becoming more prevalent as analysis techniques have become

more sophisticated, and it is now the methodology used most often in academic research

(Orme, 2009).

3.5.1 Research design and methodology – phase 2. The generally accepted

protocol for designing and implementing conjoint analysis research projects consists of

these steps: 1) select attributes, 2) determine attribute levels, 3) determine attribute

combinations, 4) select the form of presentation of stimuli and nature of judgments to

secure from respondents, 5) select the analysis technique, 6) evaluate and interpret

results, and 7) apply the results (Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson, & Tatham, 1998; North &

De Vos, 2010). Using Sawtooth Software’ Lighthouse Studio program, which was

provided through an academic grant for my research, I created my CBC survey

instrument by completing steps 1-4, which are discussed below; steps 5 - 7 are discussed

in subsequent chapters.

Step 1: Select attributes - Attributes are the key features of the product in question

(American Marketing Association, 2000); in this study, the ‘product’ was a job with

specific work-related attributes that a company provides its employees. The literature

suggests that the selection of attributes be guided by the objectives of the study (North &

De Vos, 2010). As noted above, I used work-related attributes important to Millennials

and other generations. I then used the results from phase 1 to narrow down the list of

attributes to 6, because this is the maximum number of attributes that can be used for full

profile CBC analyses (Chrzan & Orme, 2000).

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I used the ranking of attributes from phase 1 as the starting point. I decided to

combine strong manager and strong senior leadership into one attribute called ‘company

leadership’ since both attributes seem closely related and intertwined. In addition, since

this study is focused on investigating which work-related attributes are important to

Millennials, I chose the top five ranked attributes to Millennials (after combining strong

management and strong senior leadership), and then I added the attribute of having a say.

I chose to add this attribute because it was the highest ranked attribute in the combined

ranking and was ranked first with Baby Boomers and third with Generation X

participants. Considering that another key objective of this study is to compare how the

different generations value work-related attributes, it made sense to include an attribute

that, while not necessarily important to Millennials (ranking 14th to the millennial

participants), was important to non-Millennials. Thus, career advancement, company

leadership, work/life balance, role clarity, job security and having a say became the six

attributes to carry into phase 2 of the study.

Salary, an attribute that has been purported to be very important to Millennials, is

not one of the attributes that was included in the Phase 2 study. The principal reason for

not including it is because it was not in the top six for either Millennials or the combined

group of participants in Phase 1. Since only six attributes can be accommodated with the

CBC analysis tool, salary therefore did not warrant being included. Another primary

reason for not including it was the concern that respondents could become fixated on one

of the only hard numbers to be included in the attribute list, which might have

overshadowed all other attributes. For this reason, and because it was not in the top six of

the attribute rankings, salary was excluded from the Phase 2 portion of the study.

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Participants were told to consider the various job profiles assuming that salary, and all

other non-represented attributes, were the same for all of job profiles presented.

It is important to the success of any conjoint study that the attributes are clearly

understood by participants so that perceptual differences between individual respondents

are not mistaken for actual differences as to their preference for the work-related

attributes (American Marketing Association, 2000). In order to reduce possible

confusion, it was important that the attributes - in this case the work-related attributes - be

clearly understood by respondents (Hair et al., 1998). To address this possible confusion,

I provided descriptions / definitions of the work-related attributes immediately prior to

the task profile questions.

Step 2: Determine attribute levels - Attribute levels refer to the specific quantities

or qualities of the attributes or features of the product under study; as such, attribute

levels should be meaningful, informative, and realistic (American Marketing Association,

2000). The literature suggests that the range for various attributes be larger than the range

normally available, but with consideration that a larger number of levels will increase the

number of stimuli that respondents will be asked to judge (North & De Vos, 2010). For

the attributes of having a say, company leadership, role clarity, and job security, the

levels I chose to use were gradients of the attributes, meaning little to none, an average

level of the attribute, or high levels of the attribute. For example, for the attribute of

having a say, the three levels of the attribute I chose to use are having little to no say,

having an average level of say, or having a high level of say. Having a say refers to

having the opportunity to provide input into company decisions. Regarding work/life

balance and career advancement, I chose to use more specific, numerical ranges. For

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work life balance, the levels I selected were work 40 – 45 hours per week, work 46 – 50

hours per week, and work greater than 50 hours per week. Similarly, for the attribute of

career advancement, the levels I used were advancement within 2 years, advancement in

2 -4 years, and advancement after 4 years or more.

Step 3: Determine attribute combinations - One of the most important decisions in

designing a conjoint analysis study is the selection of profiles or concepts - that is, the

combination of attributes and levels for the respondent to evaluate (Hair et al., 1992). In a

CBC study, three questions need to be answered here: 1) whether to present full or partial

profiles; 2) how many profiles to present per task; and 3) how many tasks respondents

should be asked to complete (Orme, 2014).

Full profiles are those that display every attribute from the study in every profile;

partial profiles include only a subset of the attributes under study. Full profiles yield

better response data and can be used for studies with up to about six attributes (Chrzan &

Orme, 2000); because there were six attributes that I wanted to investigate in my study, I

used full profiles.

To decide upon the number of profiles per task and the number of choice tasks to

include in my survey, I considered several factors. A critical aspect of CBC survey design

is to maximize the number of choice tasks that respondents will complete to optimize the

precision of results, while not making the survey so long that respondents become

fatigued or bored and abandon the survey before completion (Chrzan & Orme, 2000).

According to Orme (2014), a CBC survey with 200 – 250 respondents and as few as 8

choice tasks can yield sufficient and valid data. Surveys with a lower number of

respondents require participants to answer a larger number of tasks. A study of conjoint

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analysis research projects revealed respondents could be expected to provide reliable

answers on surveys with up to 20 choice tasks (Johnson & Orme, 2002). Typically, a

CBC survey consists of an average of 12 to 15 choice tasks (Orme, 2014). To determine

the exact number of tasks for my survey, I needed to consider the number of participants

I expected would complete the survey because the number of tasks and the number of

responses are closely related.

At this point in my research, the number of qualified respondents I would be able

to recruit was unknown and I was concerned that I might not be able to identify enough

participants to ensure a statistically significant sample. Considering this fact, I needed to

select and present enough choice tasks to compensate for the unknown number of

respondents. The recommended rule of thumb for determining sample sizes for full-

profile CBC analysis is as follows:

∗ ∗500

where n is the number of respondents, t is the number of tasks, a is the number of

alternatives - or concepts - per task, and c is the number of analysis cells, which is equal

to the largest product of levels of any two attributes (Orme, 2010b). Typical CBC studies

include 3 to 5 profiles per task (Orme, 2014). To simplify the choices for my respondents

and because I anticipated using a higher than average number of tasks, I decided to offer

the lower number of choice alternatives, thus making my value of a = 3. I also knew that

my c was equal to 9 (3 x 3). I conservatively estimated my value of n to be 200. Inserting

these values for n, a, and c, I solved for t as follows:

200 ∗ 12 ∗ 39

500

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72009

500

800 500

Because 800 is greater than 500, I was confident that 12 random tasks would be

more than enough to include in my survey to provide reliable results. I also conducted a

crosscheck to determine the minimum number of respondents that I would need with 12

random tasks on my survey. Using this approach, I calculated that the minimum

responses needed for a full profile CBC analysis with my specifics (12 tasks, 3

alternatives per task and 9 analysis cells) would be:

∗ 12 ∗ 39

500

369

500

36 500 ∗ 9

36 4500

125

With this knowledge in hand, I felt comfortable that I could get at least 125 completed

responses; therefore, I determined that my survey would include 12 random choice tasks.

The terminology ‘random task’ within the Sawtooth software does not mean what

the term might imply – that it is arbitrary or unsystematic. A random task in the CBC

software reflects the fact that respondents are exposed to and asked to evaluate different

versions of carefully designed choice sets (Johnson & Orme, 2002) done automatically

by Sawtooth Software’s Lighthouse Studio for estimating attribute utilities (Orme, 2014).

These attribute utilities allow the researcher to determine the significance that

respondents place on each attribute as they make their choices, without having to present

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all possible choices to all respondents. Random CBC survey design uses profiles

(sampled randomly, with replacement) from the universe of all possible profiles and

places them into choice sets. Although some overlap occurs, no two profiles are

permitted within a choice set that are identical on all attributes (Orme, 2010b).

In addition to random tasks, the inclusion of between 2 and 4 fixed choice tasks,

also known as hold-out tasks, is recommended as a means of checking the validity of the

utilities found for the random choice tasks (Orme, 2014). In my study, I included 2 fixed

choice questions - questions that are asked exactly the same way for each respondent - for

a total of 14 choice tasks. Additionally, my survey included various definition and

instruction screens and requests for background data about the respondents. The

background data, including age, gender, job type, and education level, were all used to

analyze the results in different ways to investigate the effect they may have had on the

selected work-related attributes’ importance.

While the 14-task full profiles made up the bulk of the survey, I did add two

additional questions at the request of the participating company. After briefing them on

the conjoint questions that were going to included, the company asked if I could include a

question about the employee’s intention to stay with the organization, as management

wanted to know how the employees were feeling about the company and if they were

looking to leave. To that end the first question I added was - Based on your current

situation, do you see yourself with this organization three years from now? The answer

choices provided were yes, no, or unsure.

The company also wanted to come away from the survey with something it could

address immediately that would have a significant short-term impact and improve

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employees’ likelihood of staying with the company. As such, the final additional question

I added was - If (company name removed) was going to improve any one of the work-

related attributes addressed in this survey, which one would have the greatest positive

impact on you continuing to work for the company? In responses to this question,

participants could select from career advancement, company leadership, role clarity,

work/life balance, job security or having a say. These questions were an accommodation

to the participating company, and the results from these questions will not be combined

with the results from the conjoint analysis survey. The reason for not combining these

two sets of data is because the conjoint survey was based on hypothetical roles within an

organization, while the two added questions deal with the actual working environment

within the participating company.

3.5.2 Participant profile and recruitment process - phase 2. The sample for

this portion of the research was comprised of the members of the commercial team of a

specific division of a large healthcare company operating in the medical device field,

located in the Southwest part of the U.S. For confidentiality reasons, the company’s name

and specific industry are withheld in order to protect its identity. The total number of

employees for this division is approximately 450, of which over 150 are Millennials. The

details of this sample, including composition by generation, both in raw numbers and

mix, as well as the company’s turnover history, are shown in Table 9. Based on the age

stratification within the millennial group, I was able to split Millennials into 2 sub-

groups: Millennials (born 1980 – 1989) and younger Millennials (born 1990 – 2000). I

did this because the literature indicates that the values and behaviors of the younger set of

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Millennials differ from older Millennials (Bell & Griffin, 2013; Deloitte Touche

Tohmatsu, 2016b; Gallup, 2016; Rainer & Rainer, 2011).

This sample was selected for several reasons, but primarily because I had ready

access and permission to use it. In addition, it was selected because the sample is made

up of a large percentage (34%) of Millennials, but also includes significant numbers of

the other generational groups under examination. A third reason for selecting this sample

was because of the disproportionately high millennial turnover rates this organization is

experiencing. Over the last 2 years, millennial turnover accounted for 40% of all turnover

as compared to the 30% of the company’s workforce that Millennials represent. This is

reflective of the business problem being addressed by this research. A final reason that

this sample was chosen is because I have a relationship with this organization, and I am

hopeful that the findings of my research may help the company reduce its high millennial

turnover rates.

Table 9: Composition and Turnover History of Participating Company

Composition and Turnover History of Participating Company

Generation Birth Years # of

Employees

% of Division

Work Force

Voluntary Turnover

% of Turnover

Traditionalists 1900 – 1945 1 0% 0 0% Baby Boomers 1946 – 1964 82 17% 4 11% Generation X 1965 – 1979 227 49% 18 49% Millennials 1980 – 2000 157 34% 15 40% Post Millennials 2001– present 0 0% 0 0% Total 467 100% 37 100%

Step 4: Select how the profiles (grouping of attributes) will be presented and how

to present these profiles to the respondents in order to collect their reaction and response

to them - This step was completed simultaneously with step 3 as the Sawtooth Software

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program created the 12 random choice tasks based upon the specific attributes and level

descriptions that I had identified in steps 1 and 2.

As a final step, I used the functionality with the Sawtooth software to ensure that

my survey design was efficient. An optimally efficient CBC study is level balanced -

meaning that each attribute level appears approximately the same number of times

throughout the surveys. The software evaluates survey efficiency by estimating standard

errors for the survey design and comparing them to ideal standard errors for a design that

was precisely orthogonal (Orme, 2014). The actual standard errors and ideal standard

errors for each attribute level within my survey were between 0.02532 and 0.02578

respectively, thereby confirming that the design was indeed efficient. The results of this

design evaluation are included in Appendix H.

3.5.3 Ethical considerations – phase 2. The same process described in the phase

1 ethical considerations was followed to ensure that each participant in phase 2 was

treated ethically and responsibly. The required IRB approval was obtained prior to the

research beginning. I addressed informed consent with each participant by the inclusion

of the following statement in the survey instructions: “Your completion of the survey

constitutes your affirmation that your participation is voluntary, that you are at least 18

years of age, and that you grant the researcher(s) permission to use your data.” The letter

of IRB approval for phase 2 of the study is included in Appendix I. All information was

gathered and stored on a password protected computer to safeguard the anonymity of the

respondents. Like the approach used in phase 1, the results will only be reported in the

aggregate. Additionally, to honor the desire for confidentiality of the company

participating in the research, the company will not be identified by name or specific

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industry. Additionally, the company will only be described by the field of business in

which it operates and general location to protect its identity.

3.5.4 Survey pilot test – phase 2. Prior to launching the CBC survey within the

participating company, I conducted a pilot test to evaluate the survey and the process of

accessing and completing it. I invited 14 colleagues to participate in the pilot test by

completing the on-line CBC survey, which they accessed through a secure link sent via

email. The email that I sent to request their participation in the process is included in

Appendix J. The goal of the pilot phase was to have several people, whose opinions I

trusted and valued, take the survey and provide critical feedback and suggestions for

improvement. The feedback I received allowed me to make minor adjustments to the

survey, specifically to further clarify the instructions and to present a more realistic

estimate for completing the survey (8 minutes, versus the 10 -15 that I had originally

anticipated).

3.5.5 Data collection – phase 2. Phase 2, the conjoint analysis survey, was

executed using Sawtooth Software’s Lighthouse Studio package and is attached as

Appendix K. The communication and permission to participate in the survey were

emailed to the members of the participating organization from the General Manager and

the Vice President of Sales. This email communication was distributed on June 30, 2017

and is attached in Appendix L. I followed up this communication with an email on the

same day which explained the survey and provided the link to the Sawtooth Software

server site that hosted the survey and stored the data. My email included an explanation

of the process and the procedures I would use to ensure anonymity of the participants and

the confidentiality of their individual responses, along with the information needed to

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access the survey. This email is attached in Appendix M. Final reminder notifications

from the organization and me are attached in Appendix N and Appendix O, respectively.

3.5.6 Data analysis – phase 2. The first four recommended steps in conducting a

conjoint analysis study as suggested by Hair et al. (1998) and North and De Vos (2010) -

selecting attributes, determining attribute levels, determining attribute combinations, and

determining and selecting how the profiles will be presented and participants’ responses

collected - were discussed in the Survey Design section above. Step 5 - selecting the

analysis technique and deciding how to aggregate responses – is discussed here. The final

two steps in the process - evaluating and interpreting results and applying the results -

will be discussed in the fifth and final chapter.

Conjoint analysis is a set of techniques; therefore, the results of conjoint analysis

studies can be analyzed by looking at the data in various ways. In my study, I used

techniques to calculate part-worth utilities and determined attribute importances, each of

which is explained below.

Part-worth utilities are the marginal utilities of the independent variables (each of

the six work-related attribute levels) and are numeric indications of how much impact

each level of each attribute has on the dependent variable, which is the respondents'

choice of job profiles. Part-worth utilities, therefore, are a measure of the relative

desirability of each level of each attribute. The higher the utility, the more desirable the

attribute level and the greater impact it has on how respondents choose products (Orme,

2014) - or in this case, select among job offerings with various combinations of work-

related attributes. The part-worth utilities were calculated using the Choice-Based

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Conjoint | Hierarchical Bayes (CBC-HB) module within Sawtooth Software's Lighthouse

Studio software.

There are two ways that conjoint data can be examined - on an aggregated or

disaggregated basis. The disaggregated method produces utilities at the individual level

before combining them and, therefore, captures the true heterogeneity of the respondents'

preferences (Orme, 2014; Orme & Heft, 2002). On the other hand, the aggregated method

produces a single set of utilities that summarizes the preferences of the entire sample. In

using the Hierarchical Bayes (HB) method to estimate the part-worth utilities of the CBC

data I gathered, I obtained disaggregated (individual) data that was then aggregated for

the entire sample. The software also allowed for the investigation of sub-groupings based

on demographic information and generational cohort membership based on the

respondent’s age. Based on the concept of posterior probability, and using the actual

choice data obtained from my respondents, the HB method of estimation allowed me to

capture the unique preferences of my individual respondents, as well as segmented

groups of respondents, without having to present all 729 (6 attributes, 3 level possibilities

= 3 ) possible combinations to each of my respondents. The relative importances of

attributes were analyzed to determine how much impact each attribute had on the total

utility, or desirability, of the hypothetical work-related attributes (Orme, 2010a). An

output from Sawtooth Software's CBC-HB model is the attribute importances for each

attribute in the study.

The results of these conjoint analyses are presented in Chapter Four and discussed

in Chapter Five.

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3.6 Limitations

While the CBC methodology offers many advantages over other conjoint

techniques, it does have some disadvantages. First, because each concept is described

using several attributes and each choice set contains several concepts, respondents must

read and process a lot of information before making their choice on each task. This can

lead to respondent fatigue and / or inconsistency in their choices, which could

compromise the reliability of the data (Orme, 2014). My survey consisted of a total of 14

choice tasks (12 random and 2 fixed), which is more tasks than average for most CBC

studies. This could have increased the drop-out rate and resulted in more incompletes. It

does not appear that survey fatigue was a significant problem in my survey, as there were

32 incompletes representing only 9.6% of all respondents.

Another potential limitation of the conjoint analysis method in general can stem

from the way attributes are selected for inclusion on a survey. In this case, the selection

of attributes (the six categories of work-related attributes) was based on the phase 1 study

of attributes that were gleaned from the relevant literature. The set of participants in

phase 1, while generationally diverse, all came from one educational institution and from

one part of the U.S., which could limit the generalizability and application of the results.

Another disadvantage of CBC questionnaires is that they lead to sparse data. The

part-worth utility estimates require larger sample sizes than Adaptive Choice-Based

Conjoint (ACBC) or ratings-based conjoint methods to stabilize. It is standard to think of

sample sizes for CBC projects in terms of at least 300 to 500 respondents. For sample

sizes below 100, the researcher may face difficulty using CBC effectively, but since I

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secured over 300 completed responses, I believe this potential limitation did not affect

my study.

3.7 Summary

The goal of my study was to determine which combinations of work-related

attributes are most desired by employees of a health care company in the Southwest U.S.

and to compare these preferences across the various generations. The purpose of the first

phase of my study was to reduce a large number of potential work-related attributes down

to a smaller set of the most important ones. This goal was accomplished via an on-line

survey which asked the participants to identify the importance of work-related attributes.

The responses collected in phase 1 resulted in the selection of six work-related attributes I

used to design the CBC survey that comprised the foundation for the second phase of the

study.

For the second phase, I used Sawtooth Software’s Lighthouse Studio program to

design a CBC survey to measure employees’ preferences for various combinations of the

six work-related that were identified in phase 1. In addition to background and

demographic questions, the survey consisted of 14 questions - 12 were random-choice

tasks created by the software program and 2 were fixed-choice tasks designed as hold-out

questions to measure the reliability of the resulting data.

Each choice task included 3 full-profile hypothetical jobs, and the survey was

designed to be completed in approximately 10 - 15 minutes. These profiles were

presented to approximately 450 employees of the participating company. A total of 301

completed and validated responses (59% response rate) were gathered via Sawtooth

Software's web hosting service between June 30 and July 10, 2017.

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Survey results were analyzed using Sawtooth Software's CBC-HB module to

calculate the individual part-worth utilities of each level of each attribute and then

average them across all respondents for aggregated results. The market simulator in

Sawtooth Software's SMRT module conducted simulations, which provided information

as to the average importance for each attribute and estimated the job selection likelihood

using various combinations of the six work-related attributes.

The survey also contained two questions that the participating company asked to

be included. The first dealt with the employee’s intention to stay with the organization. It

asked each respondent if, based on their current work situation, they saw themselves still

working for the company three years from now. The second question, added at the

request of the participating company, asked which attribute, if improved, would increase

the likelihood of the respondents continuing to work for the company. The questions

were important to the company, and the results will be identified along with the results

from the two surveys. However, since the surveys deal with hypothetical jobs, and the

last two questions deal with the employee’s specific situation at the company, the results

of those two questions will not be combined in this study. That said, all of the findings

from the analysis of the survey responses are reported in the next chapter.

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CHAPTER 4

RESULTS

The purpose of this study was to determine which work-related attributes were

important to Millennials and would influence them to remain working for their current

employer. In addition, this study sought to determine if the work-related attributes valued

by Millennials are different than those preferred by workers from the other generational

cohorts that makeup the current U.S. workforce.

Using conjoint analysis techniques, I analyzed employees’ responses to an online

CBC survey to find answers to the following research questions: How much does each

work-related attribute influence respondents' choices of jobs, and what relative value do

the respondents place on each level of an attribute when making trade-off choices.

After completing the 12 random and 2 fixed tasks, the respondents were asked to

answer two questions: (1) what one work-related attribute that, if improved, would

increase your likelihood of remaining with the organization? and (2) do you see yourself

still working for this organization 3 years from now? As previously mentioned, the

participating company requested that these questions be added. The goal of these

questions was to have the respondents identify the work-related attribute they believe

most needed improvement to increase their chances of staying with the company and to

assess the current level of intention to stay for each employee. Armed with this

information, the company could take immediate action to address any pressing issues that

might lead to employee turnover.

Finally, based on the participants’ responses and answers to these questions, I was

able to answer my overall research question: What work-related attributes do

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organizations need to provide to increase millennial workers’ intention to stay, and are

these different for other generations?

This chapter is a report of my findings. The presentation of results begins with

information about survey response patterns, background information about the

respondents, and an explanation of the techniques I used to analyze respondents' choices.

The chapter concludes with outcomes of my analysis.

4.1 Survey Response Patterns

Of the 510 people invited to participate in the survey, 301 completed the entire

survey. This is a participation rate of 59.0%. Thirty-two individuals started the survey but

did not complete it, equating to a 9.6% incompletion rate. Of those individuals who did

not complete the survey, 3 completed the background and demographic questions only,

while the remaining 29 completed some but not all the task questions. Given that this

survey was completely voluntary and sent during the summer vacation period, I am not

surprised by the number of incompletes and am satisfied and pleased with the overall

completion rate.

4.1.1 Participant background information

Since this study focuses on workers as members of generational cohorts, it is

vitally important to see how the survey respondents are distributed among the different

generations. Out of the total 301 respondents, 1 (0%) came from the Traditionalist

Generation, 58 (19%) from the Baby Boomer Generation, 149 (50%) from Generation X

and 93 (31%) were Millennials. The recap of responses is shown in Table 10.

The millennial participants were further broken down into older Millennials born

between 1980 and 1989 and younger Millennials born between 1990 and 2000. This

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break down of Millennials into the two sub groups is shown in Table 11. There were 77

(26%) older Millennials and 16 (5%) younger Millennials. Of the total millennial cohort,

older Millennials comprised 83% while younger Millennials made up the remaining 17%.

Table 10: CBC Survey Response by Generation

CBC Survey Response by Generation

Generation Birth Years # of Completed

Responses % of Completed

Responses Traditionalists 1900 – 1945 1 0% Baby Boomers 1946 – 1964 58 19% Generation X 1965 – 1979 149 50% Millennials 1980 – 2000 93 31% Total 301

Table 11: CBC Survey Response by Millennial Generation Sub Group

CBC Survey Response by Millennial Generation Sub Group

Cohort Birth Years Respondents% All

Millennials Older Millennials 1980 – 1989 77 82.8% Younger Millennials 1990 - 2000 16 17.2% Total Millennials 1980 – 2000 93 100%

This dispersion among the generations, when compared to the overall U.S.

Workforce (Fry, 2015), has a slightly greater concentration of Generation X employees

and fewer Baby Boomers. Generation X workers made up 50% of the survey respondents

compared to 34% for the U.S. workforce, while Baby Boomers accounted for 19% of the

respondents compared to the 29% concentration within the U.S. workforce. The

concentration of Millennials, at 31%, closely mirrors the total U.S. workforce

concentration of Millennials at 34% (Fry, 2015). This higher level of concentration of

younger employees (Millennials and Generation X) is not particularly surprising as the

bulk of the participating company’s employees are sales people where the components of

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the job - travel and variable compensation based on bonuses - tend to skew towards a

younger group.

Another way to segment the respondents is by gender. There were 140 completed

responses from females, which represented 47% of the total responses, and 161 responses

from males, representing 53% of the total sample. This split between males and females

almost exactly matches the composition of the total U.S. workforce – 46.4% female and

53.6% male (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017a). Given that the sample closely

mirrors the total U.S. workforce, it is, therefore, a reliable sample from which valid

gender specific predictions can be made regarding work-related attributes preferences.

Another demographic dimension that can be analyzed with respect to the sample

is educational level. With respect to education, 1 respondent had not completed high

school, 6 had only completed high school or GED equivalent, 4 had completed a 2-year

Associate degree, 226 had completed a 4-year Undergraduate degree, 58 held a graduate

degree, and another 6 had completed a doctorate or post-doctorate education. This high

level of undergraduate degree or higher is not surprising. The HR business partner for the

company has confirmed that having an undergraduate degree is a prerequisite for most

positions within the company. The recap of the educational composition of the survey

participants is shown in Table 12.

A final dimension I investigated pertains to the type of role the respondent has

within the organization: whether they supervise other employees or not. With respect to

the respondents within this survey, 63 were supervisors and this equated to 21% of the

respondents, while most respondents, 238 in total, did not supervise others. These

individual contributors accounted for 79% of the total survey respondents. These results

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are a little more skewed towards supervisors than expected, as this division has a 1:6

supervisor to employee ratio; however, supervisors likely had a greater interest in

participating in the study. Additionally, they may have responded in greater numbers

because of their greater loyalty to the company and interest in understanding how to

better manage their own employees.

Table 12: Survey Response by Educational Level

Survey Response by Educational Level

Education Level (highest level completed)

# of Completed Responses

% of Completed Responses

High school or GED equivalent 1 0% Some college 6 2% Associate (2 year) degree 4 1% Undergraduate (4 year) degree 226 75% Graduate degree 58 20% Doctorate or Post Doctorate degree

6 2%

Total 301 100% Using the Sawtooth SMRT program, I then imported the part-worth utility

estimates for each respondent to the 12 random tasks and the two hold-out tasks. I used

the SMRT module to complete multiple sets of analysis. These analyses included

calculating the average utilities and average importances across all respondents and by

generational cohort membership, and measuring and confirming the validity of my survey

using the hold-out tasks. In addition, throughout the analysis process I ran the appropriate

statistical tests to determine if any observed dissimilarities between groups were

statistically significant.

4.2 Overall Attribute Importance

Sawtooth Software’s CBC approach provided a systematic way in which trade-

offs were varied for respondents, and the result is a calculation of the average importance

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of an attribute to respondents in making their selection among job choices (Orme, 2014).

Importance can also be interpreted as a weight assigned to each attribute (Orme, 2010a),

and in this study it shows the extent to which employees were willing to tradeoff one

work-related attribute for another. Importances are calculated by subtracting the lowest

utility value from the highest utility value within each attribute and then calculating the

percentage weight across attributes; the importances for all attributes add to 100%.

Because these data are ratio-scaled, an attribute with 20% importance can be considered

twice as important in the choice process as an attribute with 10% importance (Orme,

2014). Average importances were estimated individually for each of the 301 respondents

and then averaged across the entire group to provide insight into how much each attribute

influenced respondents' choices of jobs. The attribute average importances along with

their standard deviation are displayed in Table 13.

Table 13: Average Importances

Average Importances

Attribute Average

ImportancesStandard Deviation

Job Security 28.85 14.21 Having a Say 21.79 10.70 Work/life Balance 15.06 11.4 Role Clarity 12.07 5.48 Senior Leadership 11.13 6.37 Advancement 11.10 8.19 Total 100

Note: Output from Sawtooth Software

The work-related attribute that had the highest average importance was job

security with an average importance score of 28.85, followed by having a say at 21.79.

The remainder of the work-related attributes and their average importance scores are

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work/life balance (15.06), role clarity (12.07), and senior leadership (11.13).

Advancement, the last of the 6 attributes, had an average importance score of 11.10.

4.3 Overall Attribute Part-Worth Utilities

An output from the software is the average utilities for each level of attribute

included in the survey, which are calculated as zero-based numbers, meaning that the

sum of the average utilities for all levels of an attribute adds up to zero. This indicates

that the larger the number, the more respondents valued it. The complete recap of the

average utilities for all attributes and their levels is identified in Table 14. It is not

surprising that the more ‘positive’ levels of the attributes, such as greater role clarity,

have higher average utility scores than less positive levels, such as low clarity about

roles. But because these levels do represent actual levels within roles in companies, it is

not only important but necessary to include them in the survey and build profiles that

contain all levels of each attribute. The Sawtooth Software application created random

profiles so that every possible combination of attributes was shown to the respondents.

For clarification, though, this did not mean that every respondent saw every profile, but

rather that every possible profile was seen by at least one respondent.

Another way to analyze the relative importance of the different levels within an

attribute is to measure how much more valued one level is from another. For example, by

subtracting the average utility for one particular level of an attribute from a successive

level, it can be determined how much more valued that level is in comparison. These

comparisons are identified in Table 15. From this data, it is clear that there is a strong

preference for job security because the average importance score for a job that is secure is

102.02 points greater than one that is potentially unsecure. Similarly, a job where the

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employee is unsure of its security is 65.88 points higher than a job where the employee

believes there is no job security. Having an average say is significantly higher (101.95

points) than having a job with little or no say. A deeper analysis of these average utility

differences will be discussed in the next chapter.

Table 14: CBC/HB Attribute Utilities Summary

CBC/HB Attribute Utilities Summary

Average Utilities (Zero-Centered Diffs) Average Utilities Standard Deviation Advancement - 2 years 16.24840 29.27505

Advancement - 2-4 years 8.43832 22.95280 Advancement - 4+ years -24.68671 37.81935 Leadership – Strong 27.72809 25.62838 Leadership – Average 0.17810 14.16982 Leadership - Below Average -27.90619 26.99648 Role Clarity – Clear 27.24905 19.22285 Role Clarity - Somewhat clear 10.20332 16.00461 Role Clarity – Unclear -37.45237 24.33134 Work/life Balance - 40-45 hours /week 26.61104 43.07301 Work/life Balance - 46-50 hours / week 13.24568 16.37681 Work/life Balance - 50+ hours / week -39.85671 47.32457 Job security – Secure 89.97450 53.51980 Job security – Unsure -12.04589 24.70425 Job security - Not secure -77.92861 42.29657 Having a say - High Say Level 45.91077 36.38112 Having a say - Average Say Level 28.01892 20.16538 Having a say – Little to No say -73.92969 40.28987

Note: Output from Sawtooth Software

4.4 Survey Validation – Hold-out Task Comparisons

As suggested by the Sawtooth Software user's manual (Orme, 2014), hold-out

choice tasks, also called fixed tasks, were included in my CBC survey. However, the

responses to these hold-out tasks are not included in estimating the part-worth utilities

and importances of respondents' choices; in other words, they are held out from the

calculations. When using hold-out choice tasks, every respondent sees the same profile

with the same level for each attribute; hence they are ‘fixed’ as compared to randomized

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tasks in the survey. The specific job profiles that comprised the hold-out tasks utilized in

my survey are shown in the top six rows of Tables 16 and 17. Table 16 details fixed task

1 and was shown to every respondent after the fourth random task; Table 17 identifies

fixed task 2 which was shown to every respondent after the eighth random task.

Table 15: CBC/HB Attribute Utilities Summary Comparison

CBC/HB Attribute Utilities Summary Comparison

Average Utilities (Zero-Centered Diffs) Average Utilities

Difference to next level

Advancement - 2 years 16.24840 7.81008 Advancement - 2-4 years 8.43832 33.12503 Advancement - 4+ years -24.68671 Leadership – Strong 27.72809 27,54999 Leadership – Average 0.17810 28.08429 Leadership - Below Average -27.90619 Role Clarity – Clear 27.24905 17.04573 Role Clarity - Somewhat clear 10.20332 47.65569 Role Clarity – Unclear -37.45237 Work/life Balance - 40-45 hours /week 26.61104 13.36536 Work/life Balance - 46-50 hours / week 13.24568 53.10239 Work/life Balance - 50+ hours / week -39.85671 Job security – Secure 89.97450 102.02039 Job security – Unsure -12.04589 65.88272 Job security - Not secure -77.92861 Having a say - High Say Level 45.91077 17.89185 Having a say - Average Say Level 28.01892 101.94861 Having a say – Little to No say -73.92969 Note: Output from Sawtooth Software

As noted above, the respondents' choices on these two tasks were not used for

estimating the attribute utilities presented previously in this chapter but instead to check

the validity of the estimated part-worth utilities generated by the CBC-HB software. This

was accomplished by conducting a market simulation using the randomized first choice

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(RFC) method to estimate the part-worth utilities for the attributes as they were presented

to the respondents in the two hold-out tasks. This simulation tool uses these part-worth

utilities calculated for each individual respondent to predict which job option the

respondent would select, which is then compared to the actual job that was selected. The

determination of the quality or validity of the model is through this holdout validation,

calculated by measuring the ‘hit rate’ of the model’s predictive ability (Orme, Alpert, &

Christensen, 1997).

Table 16: Hold-out Task 1

Hold-out Task 1

Attribute Option 1 Option 2 Option 3

Career Advancement 2-4 years Within 2 years 4+ years

Company Leadership Strong Average Average

Role Clarity Unclear Somewhat clear Clear

Job Security Unsure Not secure Secure

Work/Life Balance 46-50 hours 50+ 40-45 hours

Having a Say High Little / No Say Average

Table 17: Hold-out Task 2

Hold-out Task 2

Attribute Option 1 Option 2 Option 3 Career Advancement 2-4 years 4+ years Within 2 years Company Leadership Average Strong Below average Role Clarity Somewhat clear Clear Unclear Job Security Unsure Secure Not secure Work/Life Balance 50+ 40-45 hours 46-50 hours Having a Say Average High Little / No Say

For CBC studies, the hit rate refers to how accurately the model predicts an

individual’s responses to the holdout choice task. Using the part-worth utilities developed

from the 12 random choice tasks, one can predict responses. If the prediction matches the

respondent's choice, a hit is recorded for this respondent. If not, a miss is recorded. The

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hit rate across the sample is the percent of correctly predicted holdout responses using the

model.

Using this approach, the hit rate for each of the hold-out questions was calculated.

The predicted response to actual response comparison is summarized in Table 18. For

hold-out question 1, the model predicted the correct choice 228 times for the 301

respondents for a ‘hit’ rate of 75.7%. Similarly, for hold-out question 2, the model

predicted the correct choice for each respondent 254 times for a hit rate of 84.4%. .

The result of these two market simulations indicates that the models constructed

to determine part-worth utilities and importances, while not perfect, are generally good

fits. According to Orme et al. (1997), hit rates for holdout choice tasks involving three or

four product alternatives usually range from 55 to 75 percent. Since the results achieved

in the two hold-out tasks both exceed the upper limit of what is typically achieved, I am

confident that the model does offer valid predictability.

Table 18: Hit or Miss Table for Hold-out Questions

Hit or Miss Table for Hold-out Questions

Hold-out #1 Hold-out #2

Total Responses 301 301

Correct Predictions 228 254

% Correct 75.7% 84.4%

4.5 Segmented Survey Result

Using the demographic information provided, I was able to analyze the estimated

attribute importances and the average attribute utilities by generation, gender, position,

and education level. This section consists of a review of the average attribute importances

for each of the segments.

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Segment importance scores are an indication of the extent to which employees are

willing to trade off one work-related attribute for another and are presented below. The

importance scores by segment answer the question - how much does each attribute

influence a respondent’s choices of jobs for the corresponding segments of respondents?

Within each section, the importance scores are identified and compared to other groups.

There are many ways to determine if the average attribute scores are different for

different groups. One way is to rank the attributes from most important to least important

and compare the rank across the groups. Another is to compare the actual score for an

attribute importance and compare it to the score for that attribute for other groups. The

problem with both approaches, while simplistic and easy to comprehend, is that they do

not measure whether the differences in the measures are statistically significant. To

determine if the average importance for an attribute is statistically significantly different

than the average attribute score for another group, statistical analysis must be used. In this

study, I have used two different types of statistical significance tests, t-tests when

comparing two groups, and ANOVA tests when comparing three or more groups. These

tests will be explained in the next section and, furthermore, when scores are compared

across groups, the statistical significance is reported.

4.5.1 Statistical significance determination. A two-tailed t-test and ANOVA

testing are both used to test an alternative hypothesis which says that the results, in this

case the average importance for a work-related attribute, are statistically different for one

group compared to another group or set of groups. The two-tailed t-test was used when

comparing the mean averages for two samples, i.e. males and females, or older

Millennials and younger Millennials. The ANOVA test was used when three or more

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sample means were compared such as Millennials compared to Generation X and Baby

Boomers. In total, I ran 13 distinct statistical tests to validate the statistical significance of

findings in this survey.

4.5.2 Attribute importance by generational cohort. A key area of investigation

in this study involves the work-related attributes that are important to Millennials and

how these compare to the other generational cohorts’ preferences for such attributes.

Consequently, it is necessary to analyze the preferences for each generation

independently and then compare results to the other generations. As previously

mentioned, one way to analyze these results is to compare the preference ranking for each

attribute. In so doing, Millennials show rank order preference differences in four of the

six attributes in comparison with both Baby Boomers and Generation X. Compared to

Baby Boomers, Millennials place a greater value on advancement and work/life balance

and a lower value on company leadership and role clarity. Compared to Generation X

respondents, Millennials place an even greater value on advancement and work/life

balance as each of these work-related attributes is ranked three positions higher than the

rankings from Generation X respondents. The results of this analysis are displayed in

Table 19.

As noted above, the respondents' choices on these two tasks were not used for

estimating the attribute utilities presented previously in this chapter but instead to check

the validity of the estimated part-worth utilities generated by the CBC-HB software. This

was accomplished by conducting a market simulation using the randomized first choice

(RFC) method to estimate the part-worth utilities for the attributes as they were presented

to the respondents in the two hold-out tasks. This simulation tool uses these part-worth

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utilities calculated for each individual respondent to predict which job option the

respondent would select, which is then compared to the actual job that was selected. The

determination of the quality or validity of the model is through this holdout validation,

calculated by measuring the ‘hit rate’ of the model’s predictive ability (Orme, Alpert, &

Christensen, 1997).

As previously mentioned, comparing the average utility scores based on ranking

alone is not enough, nor does it address whether these results are statistically significant.

As such, an ANOVA statistical test was performed to determine if the utility scores for

Millennials were statistically significantly different from those of Baby Boomers and

Generation X. Significance is determined by calculating the p-value from the attribute

average utilities and their corresponding standard deviations. The results of the ANOVA

tests confirm that there are statistical differences in four work-related attributes –

advancement (p = 0.0000), company leadership (p = 0.0001), work/life balance (p =

0.0025), and job security (p = 0.0179). The average utilities and the resulting p-values

from the ANOVA test are shown in Table 20. It is important to note that these were not

the same attributes that the rank order methodology highlighted; having a say is not

determined to be statistically different, while job security is significant. For this reason,

only attribute comparisons using statistical calculations will be shown in the remainder of

this study. Rank order comparisons can be easily determined by comparing the attribute

importance scores across the groups if so desired.

From this data, it is clear that there are statistical differences in how much

Millennials value four of the six attributes – advancement, company leadership, work/life

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balance, and job security. The reasons behind these rankings and the implications will be

addressed in the next chapter.

Table 19: Attribute Ranking by Generational Cohort

Attribute Ranking by Generational Cohort

Attribute Millennials

(n = 93)

Baby Boomers (n = 58)

Generation X (n = 149)

Rank Difference Millennials

vs Baby Boomers

Rank Difference Millennials

vs Baby Boomers

Advancement 3 5 6 -2 -3 Company Leadership

6 3 5 3 2

Role Clarity 5 4 4 1 1 Work/life Balance

4 6 3 -2 -3

Job Security 1 1 1 0 0 Having a Say 2 2 2 0 0

Another way to investigate the differences between Millennials and the other

generations is to divide the Millennials into smaller subgroups based on their age,

grouping them into older Millennials, born between 1980 and 1989, and younger

Millennials, born between 1990 and 2000. It is likely that the differences between a

person just out of high school and a 37 year-old who has had some level of work

experience is greater than the difference between generations. For this reason, older and

younger Millennials will be compared to Baby Boomers and Generation X to determine

if there are any differences in the results. In addition, older Millennials will be compared

directly to younger Millennials.

With respect to older Millennials, five of the six work related attributes show up

as statistically different. These attributes and their corresponding statistical p-values are

as follows – advancement (p = 0.0000), company leadership (p = 0.0001), role clarity (p

= 0.0066), work/life balance (p = 0.0002), and job security (p = 0.0098). Only having a

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say is not statistically different as confirmed by its p-value of 0.9486. The comparison of

the attribute importances for older Millennials to Baby Boomers and Generation X is

shown in Table 21.

Table 20: Attribute Importance and Statistical Significance by Generational Cohort

Attribute Importance and Statistical Significance by Generational Cohort

Attribute Millennials

(n = 93)

Baby Boomer (n = 58)

Generation X (n = 149)

p value (significance level = .01)

Statistically Different

Advancement 16.49 11.11 8.34 0.0000 Yes Company Leadership

9.24 13.60 12.13 0.0001 Yes

Role Clarity 11.25 12.46 12.51 0.2100 No Work/life Balance

16.37 10.48 15.58 0.0025 Yes

Job Security 25.16 30.29 29.82 0.0179 Yes Having a Say 21.48 22.06 21.63 0.9442 No

Note: ANOVA test used test for statistical difference calculation

Table 21: Attribute Importance Older Millennials compared to Other Generations

Attribute Importance Older Millennials compared to Other Generations

Attribute

Older Millennials

(n = 77)

Baby Boomer (n = 58)

Generation X (n = 149)

p value (sig. level =

.01) Statistically

Different 1980 – 1989 1946 - 1964 1965 – 1979 Advancement 16.03 11.11 8.34 0.0000 Yes Company Leadership

8.99 13.60 12.13 0.0001 Yes

Role Clarity 10.12 12.46 12.51 0.0066 Yes Work/life Balance

18.43 10.48 15.58 0.0002 Yes

Job Security 24.42 30.29 29.82 0.0098 Yes Having a Say 22.01 22.06 21.63 0.9486 No

Note: ANOVA test used test for statistical difference calculation

When comparing younger Millennials, only three work-related attributes are

determined to be statistically different. These differing attributes and their corresponding

p-values are advancement (p = 0.0000), role clarity (p= 0.0001), and work/life balance (p

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= .0010). The comparison of the attribute importance between younger Millennials and

Baby Boomers and Generation X is presented in Table 22.

Table 22: Attribute Importance Younger Millennials compared to Other Generations

Attribute Importance Younger Millennials compared to Other Generations

Attribute

Younger Millennials

(n = 16)

Baby Boomer (n = 58)

Generation X (n = 140)

p value (sig. level

= .01) Statistically

Different 1990 – 2000 1946 - 1964 1965 – 1979 Advancement 18.83 11.11 8.34 0.0000 Yes Company Leadership

11.27 13.60 12.13 0.2692 No

Role Clarity 18.89 12.46 12.51 0.0001 Yes Work/life Balance

8.95 10.48 15.58 0.0010 Yes

Job Security 24.91 30.29 29.82 0.3550 No Having a Say 17.15 22.06 21.63 0.2119 No

Note: ANOVA test used test for statistical difference calculation

An additional way to investigate the difference between younger Millennials and

older Millennials is to compare their average importance scores directly. As this is a

comparison between two groups, the 2-tailed t-test method will be used rather than the

ANOVA statistical test. When comparing these older and younger Millennials, only 2

work-related attributes are determined to be statistically different, role clarity (p =

0.0000) and work/life balance (p = 0.0019). The remaining four attributes are not

statistically different between the groups. The comparison of the attribute importance

between younger and older Millennials is shown in Table 23.

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Table 23: Attribute Importance Older Millennials compared to Younger Millennials

Attribute Importance Older Millennials compared to Younger Millennials

Attribute Older

Millennials (n = 77)

Younger Millennials

(n = 16)

p value (significance level = .01)

Statistically Different

1980 – 1990 1991 – 2000 Advancement 16.03 18.83 0.2901 No Company Leadership 8.99 11.27 0.1439 No Role Clarity 10.12 18.89 0.0000 Yes Work/life Balance 18.43 8.95 0.0019 Yes Job Security 24.42 24.91 0.8882 No Having a Say 22.01 17.15 0.1078 No

Note: 2-tailed t-test used test for statistical difference calculation

4.5.3 Attribute importance by gender. With the U.S. workforce split nearly

equally by gender, it is important to look at the work-related attribute preferences

identified by male and female respondents to determine if there are differences. While the

top four work-related attributes were identical for males and females, there was three

work-related attributes that were statistically different in how they were valued by

genders. These were work/life balance, career advancement, and role clarity. Work/life

balance was more highly valued for females than for males as evidenced by the average

importance score of 18.43 compared with 8.95 for males. This distinction is statistically

significant as confirmed by the p-value of 0.0000. Career advancement was more highly

valued by the average importance score for males of 18.83 compared to 16.03 for

females. This difference was statistically significant as confirmed by the p-value of

0.0191. Lastly, role clarity was more highly valued for males at 18.89 compared to 10.12

with a p-value of 0.0146. The recap of the attribute importance differences between male

and female respondents in the study is presented in Table 24.

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Table 24: Attribute Importance by Gender

Attribute Importance by Gender

Attribute Female Male p value

(significance level = .05) Statistically

Different N 140 161 Advancement 10.05 12.23 0.0191 Yes Company Leadership

11.18 11.66 0.5053 No

Role Clarity 11.28 12.81 0.0146 Yes Work/life Balance 18.10 12.94 0.0000 Yes Job Security 28.50 28.27 0.8848 No Having a Say 20.89 22.09 0.3176 No

Note: 2-tailed t-test used test for statistical difference calculation

4.5.4 Attribute importance by respondent position. Investigating the data

through the lens of a worker’s position results in five of the six attributes measured in the

study having statistical differences in importance level. These attributes, which are

statistically different for supervisors compared to non-supervisors, are company

leadership, having a say, job security, work/life balance, and role clarity. Supervisors

ranked the importance of the attributes in the following order – (1) having a say, (2) job

security, (3) company leadership, (4) advancement, (5) work/life balance, and (6) role

clarity. Non-supervisors, on the other hand, ranked the attributes in the following order of

importance (1) job security, (2) having a say, (3) work/life balance, (4) role clarity, (5)

advancement, and (6) company leadership. With respect to the differences in the average

importance scores, five attributes showed up as statistically significantly different as

determined by their p-values. These attributes and the corresponding p-values are:

company leadership (p = 0.0000), having a say (p-value = 0.0000), job security (p-value

= 0.0018), work/life balance (p-value = 0.0011), and role clarity (p-value = 0.0204). The

comparison of the attribute importances for supervisors to non-supervisors is displayed in

Table 25.

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Table 25: Attribute Importance Supervisor compared to Non-Supervisor

Attribute Importance Supervisor compared to Non-Supervisor

Attribute Supervisor

(n = 63)

Non-Supervisor(n = 237)

p value (significance level = .05)

Statistically Different

Advancement 12.46 10.80 0.1394 No Company Leadership 14.02 10.09 0.0000 Yes Role Clarity 10.85 12.76 0.0204 Yes Work/life Balance 10.97 16.20 0.0011 Yes Job Security 23.88 30.08 0.0018 Yes Having a Say 27.82 20.07 0.0000 Yes

Note: 2-tailed t-test used test for statistical difference calculation

4.5.5 Attribute importance by respondent education level. Because nearly

96% of the respondents have at least an undergraduate degree and having at least an

undergraduate degree is a prerequisite for employment with the organization, it likely

adds no value to analyze the work-related attribute preference by educational level.

Therefore, an analysis of educational level was not conducted for this study due to the

low number (11) of non-undergraduate degree respondents. This distinction might

provide valuable insight to the professional and academic constituencies; however, the

sample data in this study is not robust enough for this type of analysis.

4.5.6 Most important attribute to improve. In response to the first question

requested by the company regarding which work-related attribute would have the greatest

positive impact on the employee continuing to work for them, five of the six attributes

received a significant number of selections. Role clarity was the only attribute that

received less than 5% of the selections, being identified by only 8 out of the 301 total

respondents. Job security and work/life balance were the two most selected attributes,

combining for over 50% of the responses with 79 and 77 selections respectively. The

number and percent of respondents selecting the remaining attributes are as follows:

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advancement, 53 selections (17.6%), company leadership, 47 selections (15.6%), and

having a say, 37 selections (12.3%). The complete recap of these responses is shown in

Table 26.

Table 26: Work-Related Attribute to Improve

Work-Related Attribute to Improve

Attribute Responses % of Responses Advancement 53 17.6% Company Leadership 47 15.6% Role Clarity 8 2.7% Work/life Balance 77 25.6% Job Security 79 26.2% Having a Say 37 12.3% Total 301 100%

4.5.7 Most important attribute to improve by generation. Since the focus of

this study is Millennials and how they compare to other generations, it is appropriate and

valuable to investigate how the different generations respond to the question about which

work-related attributed would positively impact their intention to stay if it was improved.

With respect to this question, advancement was the most identified attribute at 26.9% of

the time for Millennials compared to 16.8% for Generation X and only 5.2% for Baby

Boomers. Company leadership and having a say were identified significantly more

frequently for Baby Boomers at 19.0% and 17.32% respectively, with Generation X at

18.1% and 12.1% respectively compared to Millennials with 9.6% for both attributes.

There was little difference in the frequency of selection for job security, which was the

first or second most frequently selected attribute across all three generations. Similarly,

the number of respondents selecting role clarity as the attribute to improve the likelihood

of their retention was low for all three generations. The complete results identified by

generation are recapped in Table 27.

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Table 27: Work-Related Attribute to Improve by Generation

Work-Related Attribute to Improve by Generation

Attribute

TraditionalistBaby

Boomer Generation X Millennials

1900 - 1945 1946 - 1964 1965 – 1979 1980 – 2000Advancement n

% 3

5.2% 25

16.8% 25

26.9% Company Leadership n

% 11

19.0% 27

18.1% 9

9.6% Role Clarity n

% 1

1.7% 1

0.7% 6

6.5% Work/life Balance n

% 18

31.0% 41

26.5% 18

19.4% Job Security n

% 1

100% 15

25.9% 37

24.8% 26

28.0% Having a Say n

% 10

17.32% 18

12.1% 9

9.6% Total n 1 58 149 93

Investigating how older and younger Millennials responded to the question about

which attribute if improved would increase their intention to stay yields interesting

results. While the opportunity to advance within the organization is the attribute most

frequently identified by both sub-groups, it is identified more frequently by younger

Millennials (37.5%) compared to older Millennials (24.7%). Job security is the second

most frequently identified attribute, with 27.3% of older Millennials selecting it

compared with 31.2% of younger Millennials. Two other attributes with significant

selections are work/life balance with 22.1% for older Millennials and only 6.2% for

younger Millennials, and company leadership with 11.7% for older Millennials and 0%

for younger Millennials. The comparison of the attribute for improvement selected by

older Millennials and younger Millennials is highlighted in Table 28.

4.5.8 Self-reported intention to stay. As mentioned previously, the final

question was also included at the request of the participating company. It asked the

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respondents to indicate whether or not they saw themselves still working for the company

3 years from now. Seventy-seven percent of the respondents answered yes, while 5% said

no, and 19% were unsure. The recap of responses to this question is listed in Table 29.

Table 28: Attribute to Improve for Older and Younger Millennials

Attribute to Improve for Older and Younger Millennials

Attribute Older Millennials Younger Millennials

1980 – 1989 1990 – 2000 Advancement n

% 19

24.7% 6

37.5% Company Leadership n

% 9

11.7% 0

0% Role Clarity n

% 4

5.2% 2

12.5% Work/life Balance n

% 17

22.1% 1

6.2% Job Security n

% 21

27.3% 5

31.2% Having a Say n

% 7

9.1% 2

12.5% Total n 77 16

Table 29: Self-reported Intention to Stay

Self-reported Intention to Stay

Response # of Responses % of Responses Yes 231 77% No 14 4% Unsure 56 19%Total 301 101%

Note: Adds up to more than 100% due to rounding

4.5.9 Self-reported intention to stay by generation. Investigating the intention

to stay by generation is important and valuable for the company represented in this study.

It indicates how confident the company can be about retaining its employees and which

generational cohort might be more at risk than others. Overall the intention to stay

working for the company is high, and there is not a significant amount of variation across

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the generations. Over 80% of Millennials responded that they intend to stay working for

the company compared to 75.8% for Generation X and 72.4% for Baby Boomers. There

were also consistent responses for both the unsure and no responses across the

generations. Baby Boomers who said they did not intend to stay equaled 6.9% compared

with 5.4% for Generation X and only 2.2% for Millennials. The percentage of

respondents unsure about staying was 20.7% for Baby Boomers, 18.8% for Generation X,

and 17.2% for Millennials. The comparison of the responses to the intention to stay

question by generation is shown in Table 30.

Investigating the response to the intention to stay question among the two sub-

groups of Millennials shows that there is a higher percentage of younger Millennials who

are unsure about staying with the company compared to older Millennials. Older

Millennials have either decided to stay or go, and fewer of them are unsure. A high

percentage of older Millennials said they planned to stay, 81.8% compared to younger

Millennials, 75.0%. Twenty-five percent of younger Millennials responded that they were

unsure about staying compared to older Millennials at 15.6%. Finally, the number of

respondents indicating that they were not planning to stay was very small: 2.6% for older

Millennials and 0% for younger Millennials. The recap of responses to the intention to

stay question for the Millennials sub-groups is recapped in Table 31.

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Table 30: Self-reported Intention to Stay by Generational Cohort

Self-reported Intention to Stay by Generational Cohort

Response Traditionalist Baby Boomer Generation X Millennials 1900 - 1945 1946 – 1964 1965 – 1979 1980 – 2000 Yes n

% 1

100% 42

72.4% 113

75.8% 75

80.6% No n

% 4

6.9% 8

5.4% 2

2.2% Unsure n

% 12

20.7% 28

18.8% 16

17.2% Total N 1 58 149 93

Table 31: Self-reported Intention to Stay by Millennial Sub-group

Self-reported Intention to Stay by Millennial Sub-group

Attribute Older Millennials

(1980 – 1989) Younger Millennials

(1990 – 2000) Yes 63

81.8% 12

75.0% No 2

2.6% 0

0% Unsure 12

15.6% 4

25.0% Total 77 16

4.6 Summary of Results

4.6.1 Research question answered. The intent of this study was to answer the

fundamental research question of What work-related attributes do organizations need to

provide to increase millennial workers’ intention to stay, and is this different for other

generations? Based on my review of the literature, I discovered that there were many

work-related attributes that were important to Millennials, including career advancement,

recognition, development, coaching, work/life balance, fun, job security, strong company

leadership and having a say. In phase 1 of the research, several different groups

comprised of members of the key generations that make up nearly 97% of the U.S.

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workforce were exposed to a long list of these attributes. Based on their responses, I

determined that the six most important work-related attributes to workers were

advancement, company leadership, role clarity, work/life balance, job security, and

having a say. This list of attributes was then used to build a CBC survey fielded by a

large medical device company based in the southern part of the U.S.

The results from the survey indicated that four of these attributes – job security,

having a say, advancement, and work/life balance were most important to Millennials,

while role clarity and company leadership were not very important to them. In addition,

the results confirmed that five of the six work-related attributes were statistically different

for Millennials compared to Baby Boomers and Generation X. These five attributes were

advancement, company leadership, role clarity, work/life balance, and job security. Only

having a say was not statistically significant for Millennials in comparison to the other

generations.

Therefore, based on these results H0, the null hypothesis, can be rejected and the

alternate hypothesis, H1, that Millennials place different values on work-related attributes

than workers from other generations can be accepted as supported.

The significance of these findings will be discussed in the next chapter.

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CHAPTER 5

DISCUSSION, MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS, AND CONCLUSION

As Baby Boomers retire and leave the workforce Millennials will be counted on

to fill the resultant worker gap. In order to address this worker gap, company managers

must focus attention on retaining their millennial employees. By providing the work-

related attributes most valued by Millennials, managers can increase the likelihood of

retaining millennial workers within their organization. This key business challenge of

retaining Millennials was investigated through the lens of psychological contract and

generational cohort theories.

To address this need, this study investigated Millennials and the value they place

on work-related attributes, and identified the work-related attributes that were most

important to Millennials. It found that Millennials place different value on key work-

related attributes than Baby Boomers and Generation Xers. Additionally, this research

discovered significant differences in the work-related attributes valued by older versus

younger Millennials. This chapter provides a descriptive and analytical synthesis of the

research findings to align best practices with Millennials’ expectations regarding work-

related attributes.

This study was executed with 301 participants who worked for a company based

in the southwest part of the U.S. The participating company is a division of a larger

global company headquartered outside of the U.S. The participating company is largely a

commercial division and the respondents were mainly sales and marketing professionals.

The future of the participating company is in a state of uncertainty as its parent company

has announced it is considering several alternatives for the participating company,

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including the outright sale of the division or spinning it off. These options have been

announced both in company statements and financial publications. As implications of this

study are discussed, it will be important to keep this special circumstance regarding the

participating company and its uncertain future in mind.

5.1 Findings

There are many important findings relevant to organizations that can be derived

from this study. These involve findings related specifically to Millennials, and

differences between the following groups: Millennials and the other key generations that

comprise the U.S. workforce – Baby Boomers and Generations Xers, older Millennials

and younger Millennials; females and males; and supervisors and non-supervisors. In

addition, the study provides insight about managing employee retention within a multi-

generational workplace. Each of these findings will be discussed in the following

sections.

5.1.1 Importance of job security. Within this study, job security was found to

be the most highly valued work-related attribute across all generations. It is interesting

that when studying work-related motivation factors, job security has consistently been

identified as important to employees over the last forty years, but typically it is not

identified as the most important attribute (Wiley, 1997). The finding in this study that

indicates job security is the most important attribute might be influenced by factors

unique to the participating company. Job security may be overly weighted in importance

due to the uncertainty of the participating company’s future, as referenced earlier. This

uncertainty is likely intensifying the importance of job security for the participants in this

study, thereby explaining why it ranked higher than expected. Care must be taken when

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offering suggestions to address the implications of the maximal importance of job

security, both for companies in general, as well as for the participating company.

5.1.2 Work-related attribute preference - Millennials. The study found that

while there are many work-related attributes that are important to and valued by

Millennials, there are a few that are of primary importance. The work-related attributes

that were found to be the most highly valued by Millennials were job security, having a

say, career advancement, and work/life balance. Two others, role clarity and company

leadership, were found to be of lesser importance to Millennials.

Job security was found to be the work-related attribute that was most highly

valued. While its value may have been overstated in this study due to the company’s

uncertain future, this finding that job security is important to Millennials is consistent

with extant literature (Gallup, 2016; Guillot-Soulez & Soulez, 2014; Hershatter &

Epstein, 2010; Murphy et al., 2010). In their report on Millennials, Pew (2013) found

Millennials more likely to value job security more than other generations.

Millennials also highly valued having a say. It was the work-related attribute that

had the second highest importance score behind job security. This is likely important to

Millennials as a result of their upbringing wherein family members, teachers, coaches and

other adult role models encouraged them to be bold and share their thoughts and

opinions. This feeling of importance and being entitled to voice their opinion is likely

linked to being rewarded and praised for every little thing they did, including being

rewarded with trophies and medals in sporting events for merely participating.

With regard to career advancement, findings of this study provide further

evidence that Millennials place a high value on this work-related attribute and seek

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recognition through title, praise, promotion, and pay. The level which was chosen most

frequently in the study survey was advancement in less than two years, indicating that

Millennials preferred jobs where they would advance at a very quick pace. This is

confirmed in the literature which shows that one of the primary reasons Millennials leave

organizations is due to advancing more slowly than they prefer. Pooley (2006) found that

Millennials were not willing to wait more than two years to get promoted and would

leave a company for another opportunity that promised a faster track to advancement.

The final work-related attribute that was found to be very important to Millennials

was work/life balance. This desire for a better balance in their working life likely comes

from their desire to spend quality time with friends and family, and enjoying activities

and experiences. Millennials value experiences and social connections (Rainer & Rainer,

2011; Wong et al., 2008) and are more interested in activities such as travel abroad and

going to concerts and festivals rather than having material things. Having ample time off

which comes from good work/life balance is necessary for Millennials to enjoy these

experiences.

5.1.3 Work-related attribute preference - Millennials and Non-Millennials.

The study found that certain generational sub-groups have different preferences

for work-related attributes and have different perceptions about what types of attributes

will influence their retention. Specifically, Millennials placed different value on the

work-related attributes compared to workers from the Baby Boomer and Generation X

generations. Four of the six attributes that were studied were found to be statistically

different in importance between Millennials and workers from other generations. These

attributes ranked in order of difference were: (1) career advancement, (2) company

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leadership, (3) work/life balance, and (4) job security. Specifically, career advancement

and work/life balance were found to be more important for Millennials, while company

leadership and job security were less important for Millennials. With regard to career

advancement Baby Boomers are willing to wait their turn for promotions and rewards,

while Millennials, on the other hand, want immediate recognition through title, praise,

promotion, and pay.

5.1.4 Work-related attribute preference - older and younger Millennials. An

additional finding from the study is that older Millennials, those born between 1980 and

1989, had different work-related attribute preferences than younger Millennials, born

between 1990 and 2000. Out of the six attributes investigated, two were found to be

statistically different between these two segments of Millennials. These attributes ranked

in order of difference were: (1) role clarity, and (2) work/life balance. Specifically, role

clarity was found to be less important for older Millennials and more important for

younger Millennials, while work/life balance was found to be more important for older

Millennials, and less important for younger Millennials.

5.1.5 Work-related attribute preference - males and females. A further

finding related to gender and found that there were differences in employee preferences

with regard to work-related attributes. Work/life balance was statistically more important

for females (regardless of generational cohort membership) than it was for males. This is

likely attributed to the fact that a portion of the female participants were mothers and,

perhaps, felt a greater burden / responsibility to be available for their children. This

statistical preference for work/life balance was also true for female millennial

respondents.

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5.1.6 Work-related attribute preference - supervisors and non-supervisors.

Differences were found between how supervisors and non-supervisors valued the various

work-related attributes. Out of the six attributes investigated, four were found to be

statistically significantly different. These attributes ranked in order of importance

difference were: (1) company leadership, (2) having a say, (3) work/life balance, and (4)

job security. Specifically, having a say and company leadership were found to be more

important for supervisors, while work/life balance and job security were more important

for non-supervisors. Since supervisors likely view themselves as part of the company

leadership, it is not surprising that they value company leadership more than non-

supervisors and want to have a say in company key decisions. Non-supervisors, on the

other hand, likely have lower expectations of being involved in decisions and having a

say, because it is not part of their job description.

5.2 Research Contributions

The contributions of this research are divided into two categories: managerial

contributions and academic contributions. However, dividing the contributions is strictly

a classifying mechanism, as there is substantial overlap between the two. Additional

categorizations include the research the study confirms, as well as the research it extends,

which also reveals some overlap. Nevertheless, I believe the benefit of added clarity

outweighs any potential disadvantage of overlap and duplication. Within the managerial

and academic contributions sections, I first identify the research this study confirms, and

then how this study extends existing research.

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5.2.1 Managerial contributions. This study provides several managerial

contributions, including insights and understanding about Millennials and how to manage

them. It also contributes to management practice by identifying the impact of company

provided work-related attributes on the following groups of employees: Millennials,

Baby Boomers and Generation Xers; males and females; and supervisors and non-

supervisors. These findings provide direction to companies with respect to the work-

related attributes that should be incorporated into differentiated retention strategies so

companies can accommodate the preferences of the various generations. The findings

derived from this study can help organizations increase retention of their employees in all

generations. Lastly, this study offers specific practical implications for the company that

participated and provides recommendation of strategies it could employ to increase

retention of its employees.

5.2.2 Managerial contributions that confirm research. This study confirms

research that addresses Millennials, their differences from other generations, and what

they expect from their employer with regard to work-related attributes. The first

contribution involves understanding that millennial workers have specific expectations

regarding work-related attributes. Specifically, it substantiates research that identifies the

importance of job security to Millennials (Gallup, 2016; Guillot-Soulez & Soulez, 2014;

Hershatter & Epstein, 2010; Kowske et al., 2010; Murphy et al., 2010; Smola & Sutton,

2002; Twenge et al., 2010). This study also confirms research about what work-related

attributes are valued by Millennials. Specifically, it finds that career advancement (Bell &

Griffin, 2013; Deal & Levenson, 2016; Deloitte, 2016b; Erickson, 2009; Gallup, 2016;

Solnet et al., 2012; Suleman & Nelson, 2011; Wong et al., 2008), work/life balance (Bell

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& Griffin, 2013; Holt et al., 2012; Rainer & Rainer, 2011; Twenge et al., 2010), and

having a say (Caraher, 2014; J. L. Hartman & McCambridge, 2011; Hershatter &

Epstein, 2010; Myers & Sadaghiani, 2010) are all work-related attributes valued by this

generation. Finally, this study affirms that Millennials’ preferences toward work-related

attributes are different from those of Baby Boomers and Generation Xers (Bell & Griffin,

2013; Gallup, 2016), validating the assertion that companies need to provide different

reward strategies for different generational sub-groups to meet different expectations

(Close & Martins, 2015).

5.2.3 Managerial contributions that extend research. This study extends the

research on generation cohort theory and Millennials by deconstructing Millennials into

two sub-groups: older Millennials and younger Millennials. There are differences in the

work-related attributes preferred by these two distinct sub-groups, which suggests that it

may not be appropriate to treat all Millennials the same; differences in preferences

between older and younger Millennials suggests that the commonly applied demarcation

points of the generation are not accurate.

5.2.4 Academic contributions. This study offers several findings that carry

implications for management theory. The academic contributions of this study include the

discovery of generational differences at work, specifically the understanding that

employees from different generations have different expectations from their employer.

This study further contributes to generational cohort theory in that it finds a difference in

work-related attributes preferences between both older and younger Millennials and other

generational cohorts. Furthermore, the study contributes academically to the relevance of

generational segmentation with regard to employee retention. A final academic

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contribution of the study involves the significance of using conjoint analysis to help

organizations solve real business problems.

The study confirms research that generational differences do exist (Mannheim,

1952, 1970) and that such differences occur (Lyons et al., 2012) with regard to the

importance employees place on work-related variables (Costanza et al., 2012). It also

confirms that employees from different generations have different expectations and

preferences (Costanza et al., 2012; Twenge et al., 2010), and these expectations define

what employees expect from their employer in exchange for their work (Rousseau, 1989;

Turnley & Feldman, 2000).

This study extends the generational differences research because it adds

psychological contract theory to explain the impact of work-related attributes on

employee expectations as well as the jobs employees would select. This finding extends

the research because the extant literature is largely descriptive rather than theoretical

(Lyons & Kuron, 2013); in fact, most of the research regarding key work expectations

and values of multi-generational employees is essentially “atheoretical” (Broadbridge,

Maxwell, & Ogden, 2007). This study also extends the research because it is not just

theoretical but empirical, using real subjects from all of the key generational cohorts.

Within this study, conjoint analysis proves to be a useful research methodology. It

is especially valuable because it facilitates uncovering the respondents’ deeply held

preferences, which they may not have even been aware of, rather than merely

investigating their stated preferences. It does so by determining the derived importance of

the various work-related attributes. The notion that conjoint analysis delivers deeper and

more robust insights was summed up well by one participant who said, “Thanks for the

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chance to participate. I was surprised with the priorities that floated to the top and these

weren’t the ones I’d have predicted if you’d asked me to just rank them. Thanks for the

personal insight.”

The value of applying conjoint analysis to business issues and problems confirms

Moy and Lam's (2004) research, which utilized conjoint analysis to investigate selection

criteria and the impact of personality on getting hired. In addition, this study confirms the

value of conjoint analysis as demonstrated in three other studies that dealt with an actual

business problem similar to the one investigated in this study. Montgomery and Ramus

(2011) studied trade-off decisions and choices with respect to the job preferences of

MBAs; Guillot-Soulez and Soulez (2014) used conjoint analysis to determine the

importance of job preferences across generations; and Baum and Kabst (2013) employed

conjoint analysis in their study of the employer characteristics that drive job choice. This

study confirms the value and impact of conjoint analysis as a useful tool to investigate

employee choices with regard to their employment condition.

5.3 Implications for Management

The goal of this study was to investigate and offer solutions to a key business

problem facing companies today – retaining Millennials in order to fill the worker gap

brought on by older generations exiting the workforce. As such, a key outcome of the

study is to identify implications for managers and offer recommendations on what they

can do to tackle this problem. The remainder of this section will concentrate on the

unique features of the study with the goal of translating the findings into simple

statements about their impact on managerial practice. Each of these practical implications

will be addressed in the following section.

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5.3.1 Implications for managing Millennials. There are several practical

implications regarding managing and retaining Millennials. First, organizations and their

leaders should consider assessing the strategies and methods they use to retain their

Millennial employees. Leaders must design work-related attributes that appeal to all

generations using strategies that will allow them to maximize the resources they dedicate

to satisfying the preferences for work-related attributes for all members of the

organization, especially Millennials (Hendricks & Cope, 2012). Organizations, business

leaders, and human resource professionals can use these results to influence Millennials’

behaviors and attitudes, which will help organizations reach their goals (Chacko,

Williams, & Schaffer, 2012).

Based on the preferences of Millennials found in this study, companies should

consider customizing their work-related attribute offerings to meet Millennials’

requirements to increase the likelihood of retaining them. With regard to their desire for

job security, companies can engage in ongoing dialogue with millennial workers, and let

them know they are valued and appreciated. Also, keeping Millennials informed of any

expected changes with the company, including potential changes in ownership of the

company could help address Millennials’ concerns over job security. One measure that an

organization can take to prevent the most negative impact of job insecurity from

occurring is by providing accurate information, and enhancing communication to its

employees (Sverke & Hellgren, 2002.) The most valuable millennial employees could be

offered retention bonuses that would signal and confirm how important they are to the

company and keep them financially motivated to stay, thereby, limiting the fear and

uncertainty of losing their jobs.

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In order to address Millennials’ need for having a say, companies need to provide

this group of workers a forum to express their thoughts and ideas and have their opinions

heard. To do so would require more than a suggestion box or an email address where

Millennials can submit their ideas or comments. Millennials grew up with parents,

teachers, coaches and other significant adults encouraging them to speak up and be heard

(Caraher, 2014; Lancaster & Stillman, 2010). With this early life experience, Millennials

want to make a difference, have their opinions and ideas heard and taken seriously. One

way companies can do this is by having supervisors of Millennials promote and showcase

their ideas. By supporting Millennials’ ideas publicly in an organization, a manager can

bolster the confidence of the employee, making them feel valuable and that their thoughts

and ideas make a difference. Another way to address this need to be heard is to schedule

roundtables or lunches that give Millennials the opportunity to share their ideas directly

with key leaders of the company.

A key finding of the study is that advancement is very important to Millennials--

so important, in fact, that if Millennials are not promoted fast enough, they will likely

leave the organization (Pooley, 2006; Tulgan, 2016). This impatience is likely due to

Millennials’ confidence and need to overachieve, which drives them to seek out career

enhancing opportunities in an organization (De Hauw & De Vos, 2010). As a result of

this confidence, Millennials are less likely to feel they must stay with their current

employer and ‘wait their turn’ in order to be promoted. Therefore, companies must

address this need or risk losing them. To address this desire for career advancement

companies could implement in-role promotions and career development opportunities. In-

role promotions could involve an increase in pay, opportunities to manage, train, or

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mentor others, or perhaps enhanced job titles. All of these would appeal to Millennials’

need for faster promotion and advancement without costing the organization a

tremendous amount of money. Dan Epstein, the CEO of ReSource Pro, a New York City-

based company that provides outsourcing services for the insurance industry addressed

this situation within his company. His staff is roughly 90 percent Millennials and he

proactively adjusted his company’s compensation program to accommodate Millennials’

need to move up the corporate ladder quickly. He replaced infrequent promotions and the

accompanying large increases, with more frequent promotions that carried smaller salary

increases which helps Millennials feel they’re moving forward (Reuteman, 2015).

The final key work-related attribute that was highly valued by Millennials was

work/life balance. This is likely significant to Millennials because real life experiences

with other people are more important to them than possessions (Rainer & Rainer, 2011;

Wong et al., 2008). Experiences such as travel, concerts, festivals, and sporting events are

activities that Millennials really look forward to, and that they will always remember. In

order to have the time to enjoy these experiences, Millennials want a job that gives them

time away from work to pursue them. Ways to address this need include providing

additional vacation time, flexible working arrangements, and/or opportunities for

employees to swap lesser important benefits for more time off. All of these options will

afford Millennials the time to purse the experiences and social connections that are

important to them.

Using this study’s findings about the preferences of Millennials, companies can

tailor or customize the work-related attributes they provide to make the company more

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attractive as a potential employer to millennial candidates and to increase the likelihood

of retaining Millennials once they are on board.

5.3.2 Implications for addressing generational differences. Multi-generational

workplaces bring about a need for managers to understand generational differences and

how to best manage each generation so as to retain them within their organization. In

today’s highly competitive market for talent, organizations that effectively manage their

demographically diverse workforce will enjoy a competitive advantage (Chaudhuri &

Ghosh, 2012). However, diversity is a key defining feature of the twenty-first century,

and logically this diversity shows up in the workplace. Shaw and Fairhurst (2008)

highlight the importance of effectively managing diversity saying organizations must

recognize the influence and work preferences of different generations to be effective in

the future. Actions that employers can take to address these generational differences

include generational diversity training, mentoring programs, and enhanced

communication methods (Kapoor & Solomon, 2011).

This study found that Millennials place different value on work-related attributes

than other generations. Work-related attributes most important to older Millennials are

different than those most valued by younger Millennials. The implication here is that no

one set of work-related attributes is optimal for all employees, even those of the same

generational cohort. Therefore, organizations must find a way to provide flexibility and

choices to meet the needs and expectations of the different generations that make up their

workforce. To address this, companies need to adopt a flexible approach to work-related

attributes that allows employees to tailor their reward structure to their own needs (Close

& Martins, 2015). One potential way to execute this customization is via a cafeteria or

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menu-based approach where employees select the work-related attributes that are

important to them. It is not economically feasible for companies to offer limitless pay,

benefits, and opportunities for its employees; to do so would drive costs up and

negatively impact company profit. However, by using the results from this study,

companies can enhance the current work-related attribute offerings they provide and

focus on improving those that would improve employee retention. In order to do so,

companies must first assess how the work-related attributes they currently provide are

valued by their employees. Then, they need to determine how much effort they are

willing to expend and how many resources they have available, finally deciding which

work-related attributes to enhance or modify. These enhancements and modifications can

be implemented specifically to make jobs more appealing for each generational cohort.

Another practical implication of this study involves how companies can continue

to ensure that they are providing the optimal set of work-related attributes to retain their

employees. One way to do this is for companies to continually monitor the external

environment and analyze qualitative and quantitative data to learn which approaches and

benefits provide the most value to their employees. This will allow companies to identify

what other employers are offering with respect to work-related attributes. If a company

discovers something that is being offered that it believes would be viewed as a positive

addition, it could consider presenting this to an employee task force for their reaction.

Involving employees in the development and revision of a company’s work-related

attributes could be another way to address this issue, which would simultaneously

address the employees’ need to have a say. It is critical that organizations introduce

workplace policies that are strongly endorsed by their employees if retention rates are to

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be increased. As employees’ needs vary from one organization to another, each

organization must engage with their staff to identify the policies that are likely to have

the most impact. Other ways to determine what is important to employees include

gleaning this information from exit interviews, and making note of what prospective

employees ask for in job negotiations. Using these resources, a company can accumulate

the necessary information to create the differential work-related attribute offerings that

would be valued by workers from different generations.

5.3.3 Implications for addressing gender differences. It is important for

companies to address work/life balance, which was the attribute that was most highly

valued by females. This is likely related to the fact that working mothers typically

experience work–family conflict because they want to spend more time with their

children (Karatepe & Karadas, 2014). Companies can address the unique challenges

females may face in balancing the competing demands of professional and family

responsibilities by offering more work flexibility, part-time opportunities, the ability to

work from home, or allowing employees to trade off other benefits for more personal

time off. Another strategy that companies could employ would be to encourage and pay

for family leave. While family leave is required by law, pay during this leave is not

required. Offering paid leave - and encouraging employees to take advantage of the leave

-would be beneficial and highly valued. Additionally, companies could provide on

premise company child care, which would lessen time demands away from the job.

5.3.4 Implications for addressing differences between employee roles. There

are several practical implications of the findings concerning an employee’s role within

the company. An employee’s role may affect their commitment to the organization and

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impact their intention to stay. As a manager of people, an employee may feel responsible

for the employees they manage and, therefore, be less likely to leave an organization out

of a sense of responsibility to their direct reports. Individual contributors, who do not

have responsibility for managing others, may not feel as obligated to others and likely

find it easier to leave an organization. Therefore, supervisors may be more committed to

an organization, and retention efforts might be better focused towards individual

contributors, rather than supervisors.

5.3.5 Implications for the participating company. The company that

participated in this study can benefit from the study findings and proposed

recommendations. Specifically, the company should consider addressing employee

concerns over job security. In addition, having a say, work/life balance, and advancement

are all areas that company managers should address to increase employee retention. As

mentioned previously, one specific finding from the study that might be unique to the

company involves the high importance that participants placed on job security. The

company would benefit from acknowledging these concerns to provide as much

reassurance as it can to its employees. If not, then its employees may begin to look for

jobs outside the organization and later depart the company altogether

The importance that participants placed on having a say is another finding that

might be particularly valuable for the participating company to address. Several

participants responded directly to me expressing appreciation for being included in the

survey and for being asked for their opinion. Others, like the response mentioned

previously, expressed that they gained personal insight after completing the survey and

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were grateful for this learning. With this in mind, it would be advisable for the company

to communicate to its employees about this survey.

After deciding what to do with the study findings, the company should broadly

share the results from the survey and communicate how it plans to address the findings.

Sharing the results of the survey is important in order to instill confidence in the

employees that the survey results will be utilized well, an issue highlighted by a number

of authors (Dodd & Pesci, 1977; Ilgen, Fisher, & Taylor, 1979; Klein, Kraut, & Wolfson,

1971). According to (Kraut, 1996), there are three primary ways in which companies

share survey results with their employees: (1) distributing a written (or video) summary

of the results, (2) presenting the results to employees in a large “town hall” meeting,

and/or (3) sharing the results in small departmental meetings. Of these, a combination of

sharing these results in a “town hall” forum and following up with individual

departmental meetings is recommended. This would allow company leaders to address

the overall results pertaining to everyone’s feedback, and department managers to then

tailor the message and response to the generational make-up of the team. By sharing

results, employees will see the value of their input and the company’s desire to act on

their feedback. This would likely be well-received by the employees since ‘having a say’

is the second most valued work-related attribute behind job security. In addition, acting

on employees’ feedback could work to counteract the concern over job security and

influence them to stay with the organization.

5.4 Limitations

There are some limitations that apply to this study. Even though the main study

consisted of 301 participants, some category groups were relatively small with n < 20.

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Sample sizes of less than 20 can make it challenging to draw valid conclusions about the

responses, and conclusions made about this sub-group might not be generalizable.

Another limitation is the participating company’s uncertain future, which was

previously mentioned. Because employees might have been concerned about the whether

their position will continue in the future, this may likely have led the participants to value

job security more highly than Millennials in general.

A further limitation involves the strength of the wording of the attributes and the

levels within the attributes. Wording like ‘position is not secure’ with respect to job

security or ‘position has little to no say’ may have strongly influenced respondents away

from these selections to something that was less polarizing. Similarly, strong positively

worded levels such as ‘completely clear’ with respect to job expectations or ‘company

leadership that is extremely skilled and effective’ may have biased and influenced

respondents to choose these desired levels more frequently. Though it was necessary to

have levels that represented true and distinct variation between the levels, it could be that

the wording may have been too extreme and these extreme words could have strongly

influenced respondents away from selecting these levels of the work-related attributes.

The implication of this would be to move more of the respondent’s choices to the very

positively worded levels and away from the very negatively worded levels, thereby

skewing the results.

Another limitation of the study is that individual differences have not been

adequately considered in this study. Respondents were grouped together based on birth

year into generational cohorts and studied as subgroups. This approach ignored the

individual differences between people, thereby, considering all respondents of the same

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age (from same generational cohort) as the same. In actuality, participants are unique

individuals whose heredity, home environment and education, as well as specific life and

work experiences influence who they are and what they want. Furthermore, individual

differences in race, ethnicity, religion, and education levels could impact what work-

related attributes employees value. These individual differences likely impacted and

influenced what employees wanted with regard to work-related attributes, but were not

considered in this study.

A limitation specific to the phase 1 portion of the research involves the

participant selection. Since all respondents live in the same part of the U.S. and are

actively pursuing higher education, the results may be biased. Because the results of

phase 1 led to the ranking and selection of the attributes carried into the phase 2 conjoint

analysis, the homogeneity of the sample could be a limitation.

An additional limitation of the study is that the conjoint analysis portion of the

study was executed within a single company in one country. This might mean that the

results are not generalizable to a wider population in other industries or geographic

locations. Also, since all of the respondents are from the sales and marketing functions,

the results might not be applicable to employees working in different functional

disciplines.

This study’s findings are based on cross-sectional research data gathered in a

specific point in time. As Parry and Urwin (2011) noted, cross-sectional generational

research poses a number of methodological challenges. These include the difficulties of

disentangling generational cohort effects from life-cycle or career-cycle stage differences

and the period effect related to the point in history in which the study was conducted.

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Executing this study at a single point where the results could be influenced by current

events of the company or the country’s economy in general could bias the results. An

employee’s perception of the organization may have been impacted by recent events in

the organization, thereby, influencing their responses.

5.5 Future Research

Recommendations from this study can inform future research on the topics of

Millennials’ work-related attribute expectations, millennial employee retention, and

managing a multi-generational workforce. In addition, the use of conjoint analysis to

analyze trade-offs with respect to workplace topics is a fertile area for future research.

Because limited empirical research has been conducted to study Millennial

preferences regarding work-related attributes (Costanza et al., 2012; Kowske et al.,

2010), it would be valuable for others to test whether the attributes found significant in

this study can be repeated in future studies. Such replication research would further

inform the development of strategies and recommendations for managers regarding

retention across different generational groups. To make future studies regarding

Millennial’s work-related attribute preferences more valuable, it would be beneficial to

include multiple companies in different industries and in different parts of the U.S.

Including greater variety in the sample could yield results that are much more

generalizable to a wider population. Also, since this study focused on workers within a

commercial division who were primarily sales and marketing professionals, future

research should attempt to include workers from different occupational functions. By

including other functions future studies can increase the generalizability of the results

obtained in this study.

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Additional future research could include investigating differences among

generations globally and geographically. Researchers could consider generational

differences between cultures and countries and investigate what could cause worldwide

differences in generations’ preferences for work-related attributes. Just as attitudes,

beliefs, and culture differ by country, so too may workers’ preferences regarding work-

related attributes. Results of these studies would be valuable to international companies

with employees located in different parts of the world.

Another perspective for future research would be to conduct a longitudinal study

to assess whether Millennials change their preferences for work-related attributes as they

age and gain more experience. With a longitudinal study, workers could be queried as

they progress through their career, thereby allowing researchers to further verify whether

generations are truly different and have different expectations with regard to work-related

attributes, or if these differences are just a phenomenon of age and life experience. Only

longitudinal research with multiple generational cohorts will allow us to know for certain

whether the career patterns of different generations vary significantly (Lyons et al.,

2012); and there have only been a few longitudinal studies (Smola & Sutton, 2002;

Tulgan, 2016) where the effects of aging have been detangled from the effects of

generational differences (Pilcher, 1994).

Another area for future research would be to investigate how companies could

provide and enhance the most important work-related attributes for their employees. For

example, what specific practices can a company employ to help create a "work life

balance" or emphasize "having a say”? One idea might be to provide a list of questions

and see which are the most important in creating the abstract construct of "work/life

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balance". This list would provide practical actions that companies could take to influence

and retain their employees

This research has explicated in some detail what Millennials want and expect

from their employer compared to what other generations want, which builds on the

growing amount of literature about managing and motivating Millennials. However, there

is limited literature on the effectiveness of employers’ responses. Therefore, it would be

valuable to examine employers’ responses to the work-related attribute preferences of

Millennials and determine how effective companies are in engaging and retaining their

millennial employees.

5.6 Summary and Conclusion

This study set out to learn more about the millennial generation in the workforce,

discovering what is known about Millennials and their preferences with respect to work-

related attributes. The systematic review sought viable solutions to a pressing problem

facing the subject organization today, while it also explored the gaps in published

literature relative to understanding Millennials’ expectations and how they differ from the

expectations of workers from other generations. While scholarly and practitioner-focused

literature has discussed this phenomenon and offered suggestions on how to address it,

there is a paucity of empirical studies.

It is estimated that by 2025, Millennials will become 75 percent of the global

workforce (Schawbel, 2013). Therefore, it will be extremely important for companies to

acquire and retain millennial workers to effectively meet their labor force needs.

Retaining millennial employees will be a vital component of an organization’s human

resources strategic plan. By applying the results and implementing the proposed solutions

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offered within this study, companies can increase the likelihood of retaining these

valuable employees. While this study does offer recommendations on what companies

can do to retain their millennial workers, more empirical research is still needed in this

domain to help companies continue to better understand the needs of this generation.

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APPENDIX A

Meta-analysis of Millennial-focused Studies

Source Millennial Birth

Range Begin End Adkins, 2016 1980-1996 1980 1996 Fry, 2015 1981-1997 1981 1997 Caraher, 2015 1980-2000 1980 2000 Deal & Levenson, 2016 1980-2000 1980 2000 Rainer & Rainer, 2011 1980-2000 1980 2000 Elmore, 2010 1984-2002 1984 2002 Tulgan, 2016 1978-1989 1978 1989 Lancaster & Stillman, 2010 1982-2000 1982 2000 Holt, Marques, & Way, 2012 1977-1981 1977 1981 Lyons, Schweitzer, Ng, & Kuron, 2012 Post 1980 1980 Lyons & Kuron, 2013 late 1970s -late 1990s 1977 1995 Gursoy, Chi, & Karadag, 2013 1981-2000 1981 2000 Twenge, Campbell, Hoffman, & Lance, 2010 Post 1982 1982 Lewis, 2015 1980-1993 1980 1993 Solnet, Kraly, & Kandampully, 2012 1979-1994 1979 1994 Benson & Brown, 2011 Post 1976 1976 Wüst, 2015 1978-2000 1978 2000 Legas & Sims, 2011 1980-2000 1980 2000 Thompson & Gregory, 2012 1980-late 1990s 1980 1997 De Hauw & De Vos, 2010 1980-2000 1980 2000

Nolan, 2015 Mid-1970s-early

2000s 1975 2002 Vinichenkon, et al., 2016 1983-2003 1983 2003 Smith & Galbraith, 2012 1981-2000 1981 2000 Kaifi, Nafei, Khanfar, & Kaifi, 2012 Post 1980 1980 Hartman & McCambridge, 2011 1980-2000 1980 2000 Catano & Hines, 2015 1979-1994 1979 1994 Moreno, Carreón, & Moreno, 2016 early 1980s-early 2000 1982 2002 Kapoor & Solomon, 2011 1980-1999 1980 1999 Yoo-lee & Lee, 2013 Post 1982 1982 Howe & Strauss, 2000 Post 1982 1982 Parry & Urwin, 2011 Post 1982 1982 MEAN MEDIAN, MODE

1978 1980

2000 2000

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APPENDIX B

List of work-related attributes important to Millennials from literature review # Work-related Attributes

1 Competitive salary – pay is in line with salaries from other companies 2 Flex hours – company has flexible work hours / days

3 Ability to work from home – employees can work from home at times 4 Strong manager – managers are skilled and effective 5 Strong senior leadership - leadership is skilled and effective of company 6 Career advancement – employees can advance and get promoted quickly 7 Personal development – company provides personal growth opportunities 8 Fun – the company is a fun place to work 9 Creativity - organization encourages employee creativity 10 Role clarity – employees know what is expected of them 11 Coaching and feedback – employees get feedback on performance and improvement

areas 12 Supervisor availability –managers / supervisors are available when employees need

them 13 Friends at work – employees can have friends / social relationships with co-workers 14 Volunteering – organization supports employees giving back to society 15 Work from home – employees can occasionally work from home 16 Student loan assistance – company helps employees pay-off student loans

17 Reputable company - company has a good reputation

18 Tuition assistance – company helps pay for ongoing educational expenses 19 Work/life balance – employees work load and hours allow them to have a life

outside of work 20 Having a say – employees are listened to and their voice / opinions matter

21 Job security – employees have confidence that their job is secure

22 Retirement plan – company provides a retirement plan 23 Role importance – employees feel that what they do contributes to the success of the

organization 24 Recognition – employees get recognition for a job well done 25 Social responsibility – company is a good corporate citizen and treats the world and

the environment respectfully

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APPENDIX C

Email Communicating Phase 1 Survey – Doctoral Students

May 6, 2017 Hi friends,

Can you please help me out? As part of the data collection for my dissertation, I have developed a pilot study to help me gather and distill the most important work-related attributes. Can you please complete this survey monkey for me? It should only take 5 minutes. I have already gathered data from Michael Stodnick’s undergraduates, but I now need data from other generational cohorts. I have asked for and received approval from Dr. Bell to contact and survey both our cohort and the DBA cohort behind us.

If you are willing to help me out, would you please click on this link and follow the instructions?

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/work-attributes

Also, I welcome any feedback you have on the instrument such as were the instructions easy to follow, were the questions clear, and how long it took you to complete the survey.

Thank you so much for your help. And please know I will return the favor and participate in any survey or data collection you made need.

I hope you are all doing well! Best regards, Ray Pasko Student, Doctor of Business Administration Program University of Dallas Satish & Yasmin Gupta College of Business Accredited by AACSB International rpasko@udallas.edu 1845 E. Northgate Drive | Irving, Texas 75062 | USA cell (UK) +44 739 375 3356

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APPENDIX D

Email Communicating Phase 1 Survey – Graduate Students

May 7, 2017 Hello all- First, let me introduce myself and let you know why you are getting this email. I am a DBA student in cohort I of the University of Dallas’ DBA program, and I am a working on my dissertation. l would sincerely appreciate if you could help me out my participating in and completing a brief survey. As part of the data collection for my dissertation, I have developed a pilot study to help me gather and distill the most important work-related attributes. It should only take 5 minutes. I have already gathered data from undergraduate students in Dr. Stodnick’s classes, and I now need data from other generational cohorts. I have asked for, and received, approval from Dr. Bell to contact and survey both U.D. DBA cohorts. If you are willing to help me out, would you please click on this link, follow the instructions, and complete the survey? https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/work-attributes Also, I welcome any feedback you have on the instrument, such as, were the instructions easy to follow, were the questions clear, and how long it took you to complete the survey. Thank you so much for your help. And please know I will return the favor and participate in any survey or data collection you made need. I hope you are all doing well in your academic journey! I can tell you it does get easier as you progress. Best regards, Ray Pasko Student, Doctor of Business Administration Program University of Dallas Satish & Yasmin Gupta College of Business Accredited by AACSB International rpasko@udallas.edu 1845 E. Northgate Drive | Irving, Texas 75062 | USA cell (UK) +44 739 375 3356

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APPENDIX E

NIH Certification

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APPENDIX F

IRB Approval Letter - Phase 1 Survey

1845 East Northgate Drive, Irving, TX   75062‐4736 

 

April 7, 2017

Ray Pasko University of Dallas Irving, TX 75062 RE: IRB expedited review of proposal #2017030

Dear Ray Pasko: Thank you for submitting your research proposal for prior approval by the Institutional Review Board (IRB). Your proposal was reviewed under the procedure for expedited review, as it poses minimal risk for participants. You indicate that steps will be taken to obtain informed consent from participants as well as the steps to be taken to protect participants’ identities. The reviewer(s) recommended approval of your request to complete Phase 1 of the research described in your proposal under the conditions stated above and under the guidance of your instructor.

As you complete your research, please keep in mind that substantive changes to the research method or participant population will require IRB review, and that any participant injuries or complaints must be reported to the IRB at the time they occur. The IRB policies require that you provide an annual report of the progress of this research project, or a report upon completion, whichever occurs first.

On behalf of the members of the IRB, I wish you success in this project.

Sincerely,

Gilbert Garza, Ph.D. IRB Chair

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APPENDIX G

Phase 1 Survey

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APPENDIX H

Conjoint Survey Test Design Diagnostics

Legacy (OLS) Efficiency Test ------------------------------------------------------------- Att/Lev Freq. Actual Ideal Effic. 1 1 3600 (this level has been deleted) 2 years 1 2 3600 0.0256 0.0256 1.0009 2-4 years 1 3 3600 0.0257 0.0256 0.9977 4+ years 2 1 3600 (this level has been deleted) Strong 2 2 3601 0.0257 0.0257 0.9988 Average 2 3 3599 0.0257 0.0257 0.9995 Below Average 3 1 3600 (this level has been deleted) Clear 3 2 3600 0.0257 0.0256 0.9918 Somewhat clear 3 3 3600 0.0256 0.0256 1.0009 Unclear 4 1 3600 (this level has been deleted) 40-45 4 2 3600 0.0255 0.0255 1.0037 46-50 4 3 3600 0.0256 0.0255 0.9946 50+ 5 1 3600 (this level has been deleted) Secure 5 2 3600 0.0256 0.0256 1.0006 Unsure security 5 3 3600 0.0257 0.0256 0.9974 Not secure 6 1 3600 (this level has been deleted) High Say Level 6 2 3601 0.0255 0.0255 1.0008 Average Say Level 6 3 3599 0.0255 0.0255 1.0008 No Say

Note: The efficiencies reported above for this design assume an equal number of respondents complete each version. Logit Efficiency Test Using Simulated Data ------------------------------------------------------------- Main Effects: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Build includes 300 respondents. Total number of choices in each response category: Category Number Percent ----------------------------------------------------- 1 1178 32.72%

2 1207 33.53% 3 1215 33.75%

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There are 3600 expanded tasks in total, or an average of 12.0 tasks per respondent. Iter 1 Log-likelihood = -3950.77310 Chi Sq = 8.46228 RLH = 0.33373 Iter 2 Log-likelihood = -3950.60457 Chi Sq = 8.79933 RLH = 0.33374 Iter 3 Log-likelihood = -3950.59781 Chi Sq = 8.81285 RLH = 0.33374 Iter 4 Log-likelihood = -3950.59754 Chi Sq = 8.81339 RLH = 0.33374 Iter 5 Log-likelihood = -3950.59753 Chi Sq = 8.81341 RLH = 0.33374 Iter 6 Log-likelihood = -3950.59753 Chi Sq = 8.81342 RLH = 0.33374 *Converged Std Err Attribute Level 1 0.02568 1 1 2 years 2 0.02563 1 2 2-4 years 3 0.02566 1 3 4+ years 4 0.02578 2 1 Strong 5 0.02554 2 2 Average 6 0.02571 2 3 Below Average 7 0.02566 3 1 Clear 8 0.02582 3 2 Somewhat clear 9 0.02541 3 3 Unclear 10 0.02552 4 1 40-45 11 0.02547 4 2 46-50 12 0.02568 4 3 50+ 13 0.02570 5 1 Secure 14 0.02562 5 2 Unsure security 15 0.02567 5 3 Not secure 16 0.02565 6 1 High Say Level 17 0.02532 6 2 Average Say Level 18 0.02557 6 3 No Say A general guideline is to achieve standard errors of 0.05 or smaller for main effect utilities and 0.10 or smaller for interaction effects or alternative-specific effects.

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APPENDIX I

IRB Approval Letter – Phase 2 Survey

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APPENDIX J

Pilot Survey Request to Participate Email

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APPENDIX K

Phase 2 Survey – Conjoint Analysis

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Hold-out Question #1 – Every respondent sees the same exact question with same levels for each attribute

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Hold-out Question #2 – Every respondent sees the same exact question with same levels for each attribute

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APPENDIX L

Email Communicating Phase 2 Survey

U.S. Vision Care Team-

Congratulations and thank you for closing Q2 strong over the last few weeks. We look

forward to celebrating our 1H finish at the upcoming POAs in late July or early August and

preparing for a strong finish to our year.

We are asking for your assistance for one of our colleagues and friends, Ray Pasko. As most

of you know, he is in the process of completing his Doctoral Degree. His work centers

around examining the effect that work-related attributes have on employee satisfaction and

retention, including differences across key demographics.

This survey should take less than 10 minutes to complete. Your responses will be

anonymous, meaning that specific responses cannot be identified with a particular

individual. In addition, all responses will be combined and reported in aggregate only. The

combined results of the survey will be shared with the both the Alcon U.S. and U.K.

organizations; however, no individual responses will be reported.

Your participation in this survey is completely voluntary, but it would be nice if we could get

as many members of our team to complete the survey. Ray told us that the UK team’s

participation level in the survey was 76%. We know that we can exceed that number! The

survey will be sent via email directly from Ray’s Alcon email address –

ray.pasko@alcon.com, so please be on the look-out for the email. This will be coming out

within the next day or so.

Please complete this survey within the next week if possible by the close of business July 7th.

Thank you in advance for your participation.

Eric Bruno Ben Nobles

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APPENDIX M

Email Communicating Phase 2 Survey

From: Pasko, Ray Sent: 30 June 2017 20:07 Subject: Request for Participation in my Dissertation Survey

Hello Alcon U.S. colleagues-

I believe that you have already received the below communication from Eric Bruno and Ben Nobles communicating their support and encouragement for you to participate in this survey for me.

As many of you may know, I am in the process of completing my doctorate degree. My

dissertation involves the effect that work-related attributes have on employee satisfaction and retention. Work-related attributes are what employees expect to receive in exchange for their employment. These include tangible and intangible components.

Specifically, I am interested in determining if employees’ preferences for these work-attributes vary by age (generational cohort, to be exact), and if there are differences between employees in the UK/Ireland and the U.S.

This survey should only take between 5 – 7 minutes, and I do have permission from the company to send this out to you. All responses are anonymous and cannot be identified with a particular individual. In addition, these results will be used in my dissertation and perhaps future academic papers (if I am fortunate), and your responses will only be reported in the aggregate. The combined results of the survey will be shared with the Alcon USVC organization, but again only in aggregate form.

Here is the link to the survey:

https://ALCONWorkAttributesJune24.sawtoothsoftware.com/login.html

If you have any specific questions or concerns about the survey or my dissertation, please feel free to reach out directly to me. May I ask that you please complete this survey within 1 week, by the close of business Friday, July 7th? I may, though, keep the survey open longer in case I have missed some people who may be on vacation.

Thank you in advance for your participation. Best regards and Cheers, Ray Pasko

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APPENDIX N

Email Reimder Phase 2 - Company

Voluntary Survey Last week, you received a message from Ben and Eric regarding the opportunity to participate in a very short survey regarding work place satisfaction. Thank you for taking the time to complete the 7 – 8 minute survey. By doing so, you will help our previous VP of Sales, Ray Pasko, complete his Doctoral Degree.

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APPENDIX O

Email Reminder Phase 2 - Researcher

Hello Alcon U.S. Vision Care friends! Greetings from across the pond! Thanks to those of you who have already completed the survey. So far over 200 of you have responded and completed the survey, and I sincerely appreciate each and every one of you! For those of you who have not yet had a chance to complete it, there is still time to have your thoughts and opinions included! And to do so won’t take much of your time, as the average time to complete the survey has been just about 7 minutes. I will be closing the survey soon so can I please ask that you complete the survey today? Below is the survey link for your use - all you need to do is click on the hyperlink and it will take you directly to the survey. https://ALCONWorkAttributesJune24.sawtoothsoftware.com/login.html Thank you so much for your time and insights. Best personal regards, Ray Pasko