Whether it’s flexible hours, a variety of tasks or development opportunities, we all have that “in a perfect world…” vision of our ideal work schedule. A schedule that would allow us to spend more time on the tasks that we enjoy and less on boring or tedious activities that impede growth.

Regardless of level, all employees are faced with tasks that they may not find particularly appealing. This is just a fact of life. But growth should always be on the schedule. Leaders must work to ensure employees have challenging tasks that push their current skillsets, as well as training and development opportunities to expand knowledge and increase proficiency.

In the 2016 Deloitte Millennial Survey, 7,700 millennials representing 29 countries around the globe were asked how much time they typically spend on certain activities versus the ideal amount of time they would prefer to spend on those tasks each week. According to the results, millennials would devote significantly more time to the discussion of new ideas and ways of working, on coaching and mentoring, and on the development of their leadership skills.

Here is a summary of the results:

Millennials would like to increase the time devoted to leadership skills development from 2.7 to 4.5 hours a week—an increase of two-thirds. To accommodate this, millennials see an opportunity to decrease the hours spent on email.

The fact that millennials would like to spend less time on emails may sound like an easy fix, but in order to do so, efficiency in communication practices would need to improve. There could also be other attributing factors that impact the volume of emails. While it’s not surprising that email and other forms of communication take up a large portion of an employee’s workday, the process of assessing how long employees spend on tasks is a great way to improve efficiency and productivity.

More Development Hours

Learning and development departments can help improve all four tasks outlined in the research. From the implementation of coaching and mentoring programs to entry-level leadership training, learning and development can help put more development hours on the agenda and move to improve communication practices that impede progress. This feeds the development needs of the millennial and the newly acquired skills can increase productivity and save time, allowing for more leadership development.

At the end of the day, training and development can help millennials improve their skills, leading to more opportunities to develop, create and improve.