This month, our roundup of HR news touches on millennial employees, caregiving benefits, employee recognition, and more. Take a look!

Your Brand Culture Depends on Millennials

The workforce is evolving as millennials continue to move up the ladder and take on leadership roles...but is your organization evolving along with it? A recent Business Journals article suggests that you need to know what drives these employees and adapt your brand culture accordingly. How? Start by giving them the opportunity to impact your organization's mission and goals...and create space for collaborative work. Millennials crave work that has a purpose. "Purpose-driven organizations are significantly more attractive to them," said the author, "as 64 percent say it's a major priority to make the world a better place in all facets of their lives."

Support Employees with Caregiving Benefits

With a workforce mainly made up of Gen X and Millennials, caregiving benefits are rising in popularity. An Employee Benefits News (EBN) article noted that 25 percent of all family caregivers are younger Millennials and 50 percent are under the age of 50. As your employees' loved ones age, they will look to your organization for support. What might that support look like? Some companies are offering resources like care consultants and needs assessments, while others give employees flexible hours, the ability to work from home, or back-up care. And these benefits are proving very useful - Bright Horizons' own study, cited by EBN, found that back-up elder care allowed employees to work an average of six more days in a six-month period than they would've been able to without the benefit.

Women in the Corner Office

Having women at the top is good for business. Unfortunately, according to a recent joint study by LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company, a lot of women never make it there. The new report shows only small numbers of women successfully making it up the ranks, with more than 75 percent of today's corner offices still occupied by men. It's a costly scenario since gender-diverse organizations have been shown to have stronger bottom lines. "An equitable workplace allows the best talent to rise to the top," reads the study. "Efforts to make the workplace fair benefit us all."

"Tak" on Some Points for Employee Recognition

For hard-working employees, recognition is key...especially if you want them to stick around. According to a Seattle Times article, when one hospital discovered they were losing one out of every four nurses each year, they realized it was time to do something about the expensive, inefficient turnover. Enter: Tak, a mobile app for employee recognition. Through the app, peers and supervisors can enter feedback, which gives recipients of said feedback points that add up and can be redeemed for free food or gifts. The app has helped reduce nurse turnover from 24 percent to 17 percent...and hospital CEO Deb Ohnoutka says many aren't even using their points!"It's more about being thanked, getting recognized and seeing if they can get on the ‘leader board.'"

Microsoft Gets Creative

Tech giant Microsoft is taking the great outdoors to a new level. After hearing that employees wanted to work more outside, they built treehouse meeting spaces on the company's Washington campus. According to a recent MarketWatch article, project manager Bret Boulter said, "The first thing when you walk into the space is that everyone is really quiet. You stop talking and are just present. It's fascinating. People absorb the environment and it changes the perception of their work and how they can do it."