by Justin G. Roy — Generations X and Y will continue to challenge us as owners and managers; they will test the waters, and will sometimes go overboard. However, their style is here to stay and trying to fit them into the what-worked-before model will only cause headaches.
Of course, we all know there are fewer people in the next generations, making it that much more important to focus on recruiting and retaining them. How can a firm overhaul its entire approach to employee recruiting and retention when half their staff is still sold on and used to the old way? Baby steps, that’s how.
Here are some tips to implement into your day-to-day retention strategy.
Encourage Them To Use Online Social Networks
Take the site-block off of MySpace and Facebook and LinkedIn. These sites offer more than one would think; besides a good way to blow off steam during the day (we all need a five-minute break) they offer much more.
As online social networking grows, these sites become much larger hubs of information, which, when used correctly, can benefit your firm. The sites allow people to keep in touch and see what their friends and connections are up to. Within a few minutes, you could know who is looking to make a job change (great recruiting strategy), who is relocating to your area, what firms are hiring, etc.
Flex Time
The option to come in early and leave early or come in late and leave later is very appealing to these generations. Some are trying to balance a social life while others are trying to balance their family life. Offering your employees the benefit of arriving at work an hour early or later gives them the flexibility to schedule “life issues” such as daycare, eldercare, or doctor appointments.
With this flexibility also comes a great benefit to the employer; it allows the employee to be in the office for a full shift rather than having to take extra time off for an appointment.
Flex Office
“If I can get it done, and get it done well, why does it matter where I work?” From working at a coffee shop to working from home, the technology age has allowed us to be more mobile than ever. Put together a laptop, cellular telephone, and an internet connection and you have an instant office. In fact, most people will never know that you are not in the office (with calls forwarded to the cell phone).
Reward Based On Merit
More and more people in the workforce do not believe in the old equation of time put in = promotion. They look at their individual contribution to the company and to the team as a metric for promotion and merit.
Be A Socially Conscious Organization
Sustainability and green are the hot words today. The younger generations are very interested in social and environmental happenings, both through the media as well as through their employer. Communicate what your firm does to better society and benefit the environment. If you come up empty-handed, ask your employees to come up with a program. It can be as simple as volunteering at a reading program, spending a day rebuilding or renovating a house for somebody in your community, planning ways to make your office “green.” Get everybody involved and you create emotional equity, making it a bit more difficult for these folks to leave your firm.
Training
Offer opportunities for your staff to further their knowledge, both for work-related functions as well as career focused training. People are always excited and interested in furthering their knowledge and see it as a huge benefit when a firm offers these courses.
If you cannot afford to hold them at your office, send the individual out to a training program for a day or two out of the office; when they come back, ask them to make a presentation to the rest of the company about what they learned.
Management Style
Flat-line management is top choice lately, and for a lot of good reasons. How many times have you been on top of, or at the bottom of, a delivered message only to find out the end person heard a very different version? This is a good example of the telephone game.
Spend Time And Mentor
Make sure you spend time with every employee, on a project, by the water cooler, or even at a one-on-one lunch. These conversations will help others understand who and what management is, and will help you create a bond with your employees.
The same saying goes with being a manager as it does with networking: if you do not know three things about the other person that are not work related, you need to rethink your style.
Ipod Friday
Quite a few firms have been banning the use of iPods in the office, noting the loss of collaboration opportunities between colleagues, loss of communication, and missed mentoring opportunities that could have been seized by simply listening to more experienced staff in the office. The younger generations, however, justify the use of iPods, saying they help concentration, allow them to be more creative, and get the job done faster.
Allow your employees to bring in and wear their iPods on Friday (or another day). Make known the expectation that it should not hinder their work or ability to get the job done. Of course, guidelines will need to be set, such as volume (so they can still hear the telephone), but try to work with rather than against them.
Gym Membership
Offer discounted or free membership to a local gym, or build your own. While our belts seem to be getting tighter by the day, this generation is growing up with the overhaul in the fast food industry. Ask any of them who Jared (Fogle) is; I bet you they will mention Subway. Take a look at the McDonalds menu now, they are offering fruit and milk
Obesity and healthy eating are todays headlines. I have seen this benefit sway potential employee to signing the paper with one company vs. the other. It is also no secret that healthy employees tend to take less time off and have fewer health problems. This benefit is one that can add to your bottom line.
Conclusion
Are some of these ideas and tips extremely wild? Of course they are. But so is the next generation. Being proactive on retention today will yield a much higher return than the firms who are reactive tomorrow.
Justin G. Roy is chief operating officer at SullivanKreiss, which specializes in identifying and recruiting technical and business development personnel to fill critical positions for its clients. To sign up to receive the firm’s monthly e-newsletter that offers insight into recruiting, employee retention, and other human resource issues, visit www.sullivankreiss.com. This article previously appeared in the September/October 2008 issue of Facilities Engineering Journal, published by AFE, the Association for Facilities Engineering (www.AFE.org).