Dr Claudia Manzi – Dr Eleonora Crapolicchio | How Companies Can Retain Young Workers

In collaboration with the Italian company Jointly, researchers at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan have addressed this, using motivated identity construction theory to assess how identity and personal needs might affect worker engagement and retention.

The researchers argue that individuals have a need to build an identity, which they seek to satisfy in many different contexts, including their professional lives. Therefore, assessing how an organisation meets an individual’s needs for identity development is vital.

The research team conducted a study exploring which identity motivations young people had and how they expected to achieve them in their careers. Through a series of interviews and field research, the team identified particularly important identity needs of young workers: efficacy and meaning. The extent to which the organisation succeeds in meeting these identity needs has a direct impact on identification with the organisation, in addition to direct and indirect effects on employees’ engagement and intention to leave.

Essentially, the team’s results indicate that younger workers’ identities flourish in an organisational culture that fosters competence and nurtures individual need for personal job growth, but also provides the opportunity to do work that has meaning and a clear social impact. Organisations with these priorities are the most likely to succeed in attracting and retaining young talent.

The researchers show that using person-organisation fit theory and motivated identity construction theory in tandem can assess how well organisations meet the identity needs of their young employees. The ability to access these insights is vital for organisations in an increasingly dynamic job market, where staff are less inclined to value continuity and commitment, and more likely to have a wide range of jobs in their lives.

The study was published in the Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology. To read more about the results, scan the QR code.