Comprehending Millennial Motivation During a Crisis - The perceived influence of the employee-leader relationship

Sammanfattning: This study aims to understand how Millennial employees perceive the relationship with their leader to influence their motivation during a crisis. It will do so within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Apart from Millennials comprising the majority of the future workforce, studies have shown that crises, such as pandemics, are likely to increase, due to factors such as climate change and globalization. To withstand such future crises and enhance intra-organizational sustainability, grasping what motivates Millennial employees is necessary. This study takes on an employee-leader relationship approach to Millennial employee motivation, through the perception of ten non-managerial employees from The Netherlands and Germany. Data that was obtained through semi-structured interviews. To gain an understanding of the relationship between Millennial employees and their leaders, expectations and current perceptions of said relationship were discussed. In order to better understand Millennial employee motivation, general needs and the perceived influence of the employee-leader relationship were documented. General findings supported previous literature on the Millennial cohort in the workplace, mainly highlighting the perceived importance of a personal, reciprocal relationship between the employee and the leader during a crisis. In relation to the aim, the findings of this study show that respondents found the relationship with their leader during a crisis to be motivational if the leader was able to meet basic emotional needs, positioned themselves as a vulnerable human being within the relationship, showed the ability to find a silver lining and articulate that to the employee, and communicated in a way that respondents found adequate.