Next stop: Presentations via Instagram Live? Financial services firm Baird (No. 16) has recognized the generational shift that all businesses face over the next decade and is experimenting with a new way of engaging with the roughly 30% of its workforce who qualify as millennials.
CEO Steve Booth approached the talent development team in 2017 with a request: Connect boomer-age leadership with the younger generation at the firm. Within months, a group of 10 senior leaders had been paired with junior counterparts for a reverse-mentoring program. The millennials drive the conversation on everything from debunking generational stereotypes to developing millennial-conscious business strategy and building relationships with next-gen clients.
See the full 100 Best Companies to Work For list.
“[My mentee] Bill asked what keeps millennials like myself at a company like Baird,” says Zach Arndt, a branch administrative manager who mentored Bill Mahler, Baird’s chairman of equity capital markets . “My answer was simple—it’s engagements like this.”
This article originally appeared in the March 2019 issue of Fortune.
