Millennials in the Workforce: An Examination of Motivation and Behavior

In recent years there has been much dialogue about retaining millennials. This dialogue has been fueled by a growing concern over millennial turnover trends. Because millennials have been said to have different work values than previous generations and have demonstrated behaviors outside of what employers describe as “norms” there has been much difficulty with understanding the turnover behavior of this generation. Sourced in motivation theory, this study sought to examine how the turnover intention behavior of millennials is related to rewards, specifically intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Data from the 2016 Federal Employment Viewpoint Survey was examined to meet the objectives of this study. 384 millennial employees, born between 1997 and 1977, were examined to present conclusions about millennial turnover. This study found that both intrinsic rewards and extrinsic rewards were related to turnover intentions. When millennials held a positive perception of rewards, they were less likely to express turnover intentions. These findings were useful in understanding what role rewards can play when acting as motivators to reduce turnover for the millennial generation