Success with millennials dresses up Burberry's bottom line

What happens when a high-end luxury brand with a stodgy reputation focuses all its efforts on attracting millennial employees and customers? In the case of Burberry, a 150-year-old British brand, sales and share price tripled since July 2006, when Angela Ahrendts became CEO.

Drawing on its venerable brand � but with both feet in the digital age, Burberry has bet its future on the up-and-coming millennials, the children of Baby Boomers. More than half of the company�s employees are millennials and Burberry is the leading luxury brand on Facebook and Twitter.

Like millennials themselves, Burberry �blurs the lines between physical and digital,� according to Ahrendts, who left the company April 30 to head Apple�s retail operations. Customers feel as if they are walking into a website when they enter a Burberry store.

Understanding how millennials think and how they want to work is critical to your company�s success. Not only are these the employees you need to be competitive; they are your customers and they�re expected to have $1.4 trillion in spending power by 2020. Millennials will surpass the spending power of Baby Boomers by 2018.

By 2025, millennials will be about 75 percent of the global workforce. Like Burberry, companies that understand how to attract millennials and inspire them to create products and services that their cohorts want will emerge as the winners.

If you�re a business leader, here�s a summary of what you should know about Generation Y:

• Millennials want to do their jobs differently than their parents did. They expect to be able to work anywhere, anytime from any device. That means working at home when it makes sense, but it also means having no problem when the boss texts at 11 p.m. to ask a question. Similarly, as long as they�re getting their job done, they expect to be able to shop online or get a haircut during traditional work hours. They want to use their own tablets and smartphones, and are not only willing to adapt to the latest software and hardware, but expect their company to keep pace. Serial multi-taskers, they refuse to work at a place where they can�t wear their earbuds.

• The millennial generation wants jobs that give them opportunities to learn and develop in their chosen field. They want to make a difference for their companies and their companies' customers. But they expect to work for many different employers. Some estimates say they will have as many as 17 jobs during their career. The most successful employers will be those who can retain millennials by creating new jobs and opportunities for them within the company.

• Millennials want to �do good� both on the job and through their charitable initiatives. They want to make the world a better place.

• Millennials don�t see the world as �us� vs. �them." After all, for them, it�s all about �friends,� not enemies. If they are shown respect by older workers, they will reciprocate. They want to collaborate � to learn from co-workers and have co-workers learn from them.

Companies that understand how millennials work and what they want from the workplace will have their choice of the best and brightest of a highly educated generation. Just look at Yahoo, which reports that it receives 18,000 resumes a week.

If your company doesn�t have millennials beating down your door, it�s time to change things so that they�ll come in when invited, and feel welcome enough to stay.

What�s your winning strategy?