While the emotional wellbeing of an employee is critical in the workplace as a means of ensuring productivity and harmonious coexistence, many millennials are faced with the challenge of depression with 20% of millennial employees depicting this phenomenon while the rate is estimated at 16% for baby boomers and the generation X combined (Alton, 2017). This issue raises the need for employers to pay attention to their employees’ emotions and needs, particularly in alignment with ways through which to curb depression. As such, emotional development and employees’ wellbeing emerge as areas that organizations should embark on in ensuring low rates of depression which will further yield optimum productivity, a critical aspect for the sustenance of the firm in the long run.
Emotional development is one way through which to ensure that employees attain awareness of their emotions as well as those of their coworkers, develop adaptive strategies, and boost coexistence. The notion of training employees to boost their emotional intelligence is, therefore, critical as emotions are and important aspect of communication and social interactions (Illouz, 2007). A further insight in emotional development is that employees attain the knowledge required in the identification of their coworkers’ emotions and how to deal with the same and avoid being stressed by issues that could be avoided by the control of one’s and other’s emotions.
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The notion of depicting concern for the employees’ welfare is another tactic that could help the work places to deal with this crisis. While employees differ in their needs and job satisfaction outcomes, millennials have various expectations for a job that is likely to keep them less depressed or not depressed at all. While salary is a factor in ensuring job satisfaction, millennials would retain a job that offers learning opportunities, quality managers and management, interesting tasks, and advancement opportunities. In this sense, engagement matters more than a salary raise for a millennial employee. The implication is that work places should focus on opportunities that would engage the millennials, including offering opportunities to advance their career, as a way of creating and sustaining a sense of purpose which matters the most for this generation (Adkins & Rigoni, 2016).
While there is optimum support for emotional development and investment in factors that ensure a sense of purpose for the millennial workforce as a way of reducing the rates of depression, some organizations perceive it as a costly idea in alignment with the effort and money required in sustaining the same. Such organizations have adopted the do-it-yourself strategy for any training or advancement strategy that may be required by an employee to boost their knowledge or sense of purpose (Lewis, 2014). While one would not deny the fact that money and effort are prerequisites for success, it would also be appropriate to weigh the benefits against the costs while considering that the millennial workforce comprises of a generation that has the capacity to drive the organizations forward. This generation is more likely to raise insightful and current ideas to boost the organization’s performance, a fact that is founded on their priority for a sense of purpose rather than pay rise as a motivating factor (Adkins & Rigoni, 2016).
In conclusion, emotional development and a focus on employees’ well being are critical in ensuring a reduction of depression among the millennials. Emotional development emerges as a way of boosting the awareness of one’s and others’ emotions and developing coping strategies that aid social interactions in the work place. Employees’ well being entails a depiction of concern on employees’ needs and in particular, striving to ensure that millennials engage in endeavors that depict a sense of purpose. Though emotional development and employees’ welfare are costly endeavors for the work place, managers should engage in a benefit-cost analysis before supporting the do-it-yourself strategy. Eventually, organizations are the ones to benefit more than the employees where emotional development and concern for the employees’ welfare, particularly millennials, are actualized.
References
Adkins, A., & Rigoni, B. (2016, June 1). Paycheck or purpose. What drives millennials? Business Journal. Retrieved from https://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/191906/paycheck-purpose-drives-millennials.aspx
Illouz, E. (2007). Cold intimacies: The making of emotional capitalism. Polity Press.
Lewis, K. R. (2014, November 5). How to advance when there is no career ladder. Fortune. Retrieved from http://fortune.com/2014/11/05/career-advancement-advice/
Alton, L. (2017, October 16). Millennials and depression: Should workplaces Adapt? Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/larryalton/2017/10/16/millennials-and-depression-should-workplaces-adapt/#178d414d29c4
