Team activities more engaging for young professionals

Team activities designed to boost morale and strengthen relationships, are more successful in engaging younger talent than individual ones, a new report suggests. The research carried out by Perkbox and Talentpool claims that employer recruitment techniques are adapting incentives accordingly in a bid to attract top young talent, as young professionals today seem to like to prioritise ‘team’ over ‘individual’ in all of their everyday working practices.

The most publicised team perks this year by UK employers are ‘social events’ such as a team board game session or quiz night, listed in 23 percent of job descriptions, followed by team lunches (15 percent) and Friday drinks (11 percent).

The research, which analysed 8,700 job descriptions targeting millennials and Gen Zs across the UK in the past 12 months, found that many individual perks – a lot of which were commonly used in the past to attract talent – rarely appeared in the job descriptions studied and no longer seem to be considered a make or break factor to attract young professionals. ‘Cycle to work’ schemes for example, were only mentioned in 7 percent of job descriptions, followed by season ticket loans (4 percent). Birth-a-holidays – a day off on your birthday (2 percent), yoga (1 percent) and meditation (0 percent).

An exception to this trend was private healthcare, an individual and more ‘traditional’ perk which was listed in 28 percent of the job specs studied.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]When it comes to employees’ desired working environments, there is a trend for prioritising ‘team’ over ‘individual’ in today’s workplace[/perfectpullquote]

The research claims a similar trend when it comes to employees’ desired working environments, there is a trend for prioritising ‘team’ over ‘individual’ in today’s workplace. When asked ‘which of the following do you think is the most important to succeed?’ – ‘Building strong interpersonal relationships’ came out top of the pile at 35 percent. This was followed by ‘Coming up with new, innovative ideas’ at 27 percent and ‘Working efficiently to hit your targets’ at 26 percent.

Similarly, when it comes to the type of environment they work best in, team came top, with 30 percent of respondents answering that they work best ‘Where employees operate as individuals, but are still focused on succeeding as a team’ and 28 percent stating their working environment of choice would be ‘Where building relationships and collaboration are crucial to success’.

In other words, providing greater room for collaboration – be this in the form of perks, resources or leadership principles, seems to be the way forward to attract talent in today’s day and age – and this is not only something employers see this way, but employees too.

Chieu Cao, Co-founder of Perkbox said: “There’s clearly a trend emerging. The next generation of our workforce are seeing their colleagues as more than just that – colleagues are building much stronger bonds between each other than in the past.”

Andrew Lavelle, Co-founder of TalentPool added: “There is an increasing competition for talent across companies of all shapes and sizes. Employers are offering more than just traditional benefits to stand out in the market today; not only to attract but also to retain the best talent. And there is definitely a stronger focus now more than ever before on a collaborative company culture. Millennials are looking for more than just a well paid job – they are looking for balance, development and purpose in their career. For this, the right working environment is key.”