Every time I turn around, I see an article about how hard it is to attract and retain younger workers. This problem has only been exacerbated by the considerable number of baby boomers who have retired or are about to retire. This is creating a large number of openings that most companies are having a hard time filling. Why is this? I read a recent article that said a lot of young people prefer to work gig jobs as an Uber driver or a pizza delivery person so they can set their own hours and work whenever they want to. Many of them got used to not working during the COVID lockdown and they picked up part-time jobs during that time and found they liked it. There also isn’t the stigma there used to be about job hopping or gaps on your resume. Most employers are so desperate for help they don’t even care about criminal records the way they used to. They just need a warm body to fill an opening.
At my last company, we started planning for the baby boomer exit over 10 years ago by creating college internships and our manager-in-training program. We started recruiting at various colleges within our business footprint and it was extremely successful. We hired a lot of young people who we thought had potential and trained them in our way of doing business. The manager-in-training program was supposed to be 12 months to 18 months long but, due to our growth, I don’t think anyone ever made it to the 18-month mark before they were promoted to a branch manager position.
Once you have hired younger workers, how do you keep them? We found that younger workers are more loyal to their profession than they are to their employer. This is because over the last 20 or 30 years a lot of young people have seen their parents laid off after many years of faithful service and they took note of this. They have reached the opinion that it isn’t worth being loyal to your employer as you will be laid off during the next downturn anyhow. So, as they are more loyal to their profession than to their employer, how do you keep them? We found that by sending them to seminars, conventions and trade association meetings, and providing them with modern up-to-date equipment like the latest computers or even tractor trailers, young people are more likely to stay. When they feel appreciated and see that you are investing in their future, and when they like their work surroundings and the equipment that they use, they are much more likely to stay for the long term.
Jim Sobeck is a Greenville-based serial entrepreneur. He most recently was CEO of New South Construction Supply, a distributor of building products he grew from 4 locations to 11 locations before selling it in February of 2023. He is also the author of The Real Business 101: Lessons From the Trenches, available on Amazon. He can be reached at jrsobeck@gmail.com.
