With millennials expected to make up over a third of the global workforce by 2020, and Generation Z now entering the workforce, it is more important than ever to explore leading the next generation of talent to the C-suite. The time is ripe for you to assess your people management strategies and re-evaluate the way you can balance your generation gap and inspire younger workers into leadership positions. There are several ways in which you can instill motivation and drive in the youth of your company and inspire a new wave of leadership potential:

Provide them with a voice

Encouraging your younger generation of workers to express their thoughts, opinions and experiences in the office is important to their professional development. Providing them with a voice in this way gives them the opportunity to be an authority in their own right, allows them to be heard by their colleagues, mentors and senior executives, and inspires them to think and speak creatively. Being heard can come in many forms, whether this be in one-to-ones, in small groups or challenging the younger generation to speak alone and pitch. As an employer, it is just as important to act on what the younger generation in your team say as listening to them. By providing them with a platform to be heard, and implementing changes as a result, you are encouraging positive discussion within the team.

Offer mentoring schemes

For young members of the team, and especially those who have made clear their desire to excel to a senior level, mentoring programmes can go a long way in helping develop the skills and characteristics of a future leadership role. They are an opportunity to facilitate learning and growth, with members of your team partnering up to share experiences and help shape further development in the company. It can be an invaluable asset to a company to offer a mentoring programme and can lead to a real boost in what the younger workers in your team bring to the table.

Make success attainable

To inspire younger workers into leadership positions, you have to outline how they can reach that goal and make success attainable. This can come from creating a personal development plan with each of your employees, providing them with clear expectations and responsibilities and offering goals that can be worked towards. Making success achievable also means giving your young workforce the right experience to inspire them to reach leadership positions. By providing great training opportunities to encourage personal and professional development, you are showing the younger members of the team that you care about their progression and are actively seeking ways to accelerate their career. Success is also measurable through praise and reward systems – highlighting the ways that your team have met targets, reached goals and taken another step closer to becoming a senior member of the company.

Inspiring young workers into leadership positions can bring about challenges, but primarily great rewards. Being able to create and implement a personal development programme and strategy is key to outlining the pathway to success and continually investing in the wellbeing and success of these younger members of the team can lead to their motivation to fill senior leadership roles in your business. Younger generations are inspired by their leaders, so ensure you are putting this into practice to yield the best results.