We’ve all probably heard of Bring Your Child to Work Day, but LinkedIn is upping the ante with Bring in Your Parents Day, which is exactly what it sounds like.
The social media giant is inviting organizations to join them on Thursday, Nov. 6 in letting employees bring their parents into work for a day, giving them a “taste of where their children work and their children a chance to say thank you.”
Role models
LinkedIn is part of a growing number of companies that are attempting to engage younger workers by reaching out to those who they are most likely to listen to – their parents.
Today’s young adults grew up with more involved parents than past generations. In fact, almost half of Millennials identify their parents as role models, and they talk to their parents more than other generations do.
Job confusion
The idea for Bring In Your Parents day was hatched after a LinkedIn executive got an email from her mom stating, “I keep trying to explain to my friends what it is you do and I can’t explain it, so if you could please draft a paragraph for me that would be great.”
LinkedIn conducted an internal survey that found more than one-third of employees’ parents didn’t know what their child does for a living, so the solution seemed natural.
Lindsey Pollack, best-selling author of several books on generational differences in the workforce, elaborates:
Companies are now realizing that it’s really hard to maintain loyalty and retention, and one of the things that they found is that Millennials listen to their parents. I used to joke that one day we would have ‘Take Your Parents To Work Day’ and people used to laugh. It was inevitable.”
Bring In Your Parents
In other words, there’s a reason that 3 (three) percent of Millennials openly admit to bringing their parents to a job interview.
Bring In Your Parents Day, now in its second year, is a great way to connect with younger workers in your organization, and show them that you care about the people in their lives that matter the most.
More on Bring In Your Parents Day, courtesy of LinkedIn, can be found here.]
This was originally published on the Michael C. Fina blog.