As the role of traditional jobs recedes into the background, new recruits, especially those within industries based around technology, are much more demanding when it comes to both the meat and the potatoes of any new job. They are no longer satisfied with the regular 9 to 5, but are looking for new experiences as well as a job that offers satisfaction through both immersion and engagement. As such, they are looking for businesses that can offer new and exciting activities which should include the job itself, but with something more added into the mix.

And no, it won't do to clear some office space for a table tennis table, or have the latest and most expensive Italian latte coffee machines in the kitchen. It's not that these are necessarily old-fashioned, but that they are to be expected in any office situation today. And why, you might ask, is it so important to pander to the needs of this generation of millennials? The reason is simple; a failure to do so and you will be missing out on the best talent. In some ways there is a constant battle being waged to attract the best of the best into your business. Just the promise of a high salary is not going to cut it anymore. Of course, pay is important. But today's recruits are looking further afield and are not content with the boring office environment, but wish to enlarge the whole work experience and focus on the new and the exciting.

In some ways, it’s as if employees have now become customers, and the employer must cater for them, and look after all their needs and wants. Failure to do so and they simply say adios and move on to the nearest competitor. Probably the main question that most employers have, is how on earth do you cater to these people?

How do You Cater to a Millenial?

Here's a simple fact for you; that in today's workforce 35% of them are millennials and by 2025 over 75% of them will be making up the workspace. With these figures in mind, it becomes easier to understand what's necessary. Essentially, you have to learn to become sensitive to people. It's not enough to simply employ someone, give them a salary and tell them to get on with it. You actually have to show some love and really care for them.

Why do we Care?

When you were to take into consideration an average work force, you may be surprised to learn that only 34% of them are engaged in what they're doing. Of those, just 13% are highly engaged. What this means is that more than half of your workforce are disengaged and don't really care. In some ways this is the fault of both the employee and the employer. The former is looking for something that the latter is disinclined to offer. But at the end of the day, it will be the business that suffers if the employer fails to engage and is bored.

Stuck in The Past

So many of today's businesses are showing an absolute lack of imagination when it comes to the perks and special offers that need to be on offer to attract and retain the best talent. We've even put together a list of the run-of-the-mill, bland and disappointing rewards and activities that out of date employers think are so cool, when in fact they're just products of lazy thinking and habit.

Work autonomy in how the work is performed.
Great benefits.
Workplace apps
Involvement in decision making
Transparent and democratic leadership
Healthy on on-site fruit
Gym membership
Employee hosted lunch and learns
Improvement feedback

This list is so bland it's even beyond vanilla. No rockstar employee is going to be happy with these boring and unfocused activities. By themselves they will not make any employment environment more attractive and have a greater possibility of doing the polar opposite.

So you may well ask what should an employer be offering his new recruits and the talent that he needs to attract to his business? To do that we've put together a more dynamic list of activities and working activities that should encourage any recruit to be more productive as they are more stimulated. You want your workers to look forward to coming to work.

Open collaboration and brainstorming
Meaningful work
Frequent ongoing snap feedbacks and conversations
An eye on professional growth
Mentoring
In the moment managers
Allowance to be autonomous

One recruitment technique that's now becoming popular across HR departments in many businesses, is the use of escape room games. Of course, being trendy, they're not actually called escape room games but rather “E-rooms.” Essentially, this involves putting a new and  modern spin on the escape room game genre. So far the games have proved very successful in the following factors:

Attract top talent
Elicit team building
Teach new skills
Market new products.  

Large employers like Boeing, Nestles, and Procter and Gamble have all delved into using the E-rooms as a means of increasing employee engagement. Depending on who you listen to, there are claims that profits have gone up and they have been up to a doubling in the average revenue income. In France, Google have created their own E-room called “Première Pièce”, whereby they use Google tools and apps, to help new applicants solve a series of riddles and puzzles in order to make their escape.

In Australia, the leading purveyor of escape room experiences is a company called Escape Hunt. They are now redefining the escape room by taking it from a weekend family activity to a serious tool for training and recruitment. Though playing the game is important, it's the debriefing that takes place after the challenges are complete that allow companies to really understand their employees. As Rebecca Assice, director and master franchisor at Escape Hunt, says, “Teamwork is critical here so participants will have to display many competencies that are necessary for a productive workplace environment including communication, leadership, stress management, problem solving and lateral thinking.”

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Google Sydney, Ernst and Young, and Deloitte are just a few of the businesses that have given very positive feedback after the room experience with Escape Hunt. As we previously discussed in many articles, one of the main focusing points of the whole escape room experience is to encourage all team members to work together and contribute to a common cause. Once outside, and having completed the gameplay, many participants say that it was super fun and unlike any of the other team building exercises that take place within the office environment. Furthermore, the escape room isn't cheesy or cringeworthy like a lot of other office team building exercises..

Of course, you don't actually have to go out to experience an escape room. The brewer Anheuser-Busch set up an in-house game in order to find the best quality prospective candidates. With so many people applying for positions within the company, they decided to reinvent the whole hiring process. Essentially the candidate will receive experience in a simulated Anheuser-Busch office, where they are tasked to set up and run a new brewery within a 15-minute time frame. The brewery claims that this allows Anheuser-Busch to weed out the recruits who don't fit in with the brewers' culture. They claim this saves some considerable cost as well as unwanted employee turnover.

It's interesting to see how larger companies are finally getting it when it comes to not only attracting the right people, but also retaining them. Thanks in part to the internet, the jobs market has become much more diverse, and it's turned the whole employer-employee relationship on its head. New recruits are not willing to do the same work and in the same manner that their parents had to. They want more autonomy and if a business isn't going to give them this, then they will go elsewhere. We believe that escape rooms and the whole escape room genre will play a larger and larger part in HR and recruitment, not only as a means for employers to find the right employee, but also as a method of attracting the right talent, who are interested in forward thinking and original companies.