Millennials—national business publications are full of articles about how to attract them, work with them, manage them and retain them. Pritchett employs a lot of millennials and he recently ranked on a glassdoor.com list for being one of the top CEOs of a small- to medium-sized business, as voted by anonymous employees.
Pritchett suspects millennials aren’t much different from other generations.
“Fifteen years ago there were lots of articles about integrating Generation Xers into your company, now there’s lots of articles about integrating millennials,” he said. “Whatever they name the next generation,15 years from now there will be lots of articles on integrating those crazy people into your company.”
There are generational differences, but often the stage someone is at in their life matters more then their age, Pritchett said. For example, people who are parents often have different priorities than people who are not, regardless of what generation they are a part of.
Pritchett has few rules at Faithlife—no smoking, no open flame and a few others that are required by law—and strives to give employees responsibility, autonomy and freedom, he said. Employees take sick time and vacation at their own discretion.
“We treat people like adults,” he said. “ We look for people who will be good at their job and we give them the support, tools and training they need and we trust that they’ll do it well.”