I was having lunch the other day with a friend of mine who
works in one of the large law firms in town when the topic of hiring new
employees came up. Although the type of
employee one hires for a law firm is quite different from the people I hire for
our manufacturing plant, the similarities of our frustrations were
incredible. Our biggest complaint was
how difficult it is to find employees who have a passion for work. Given the fact that the unemployment rate in
the United States is around 6.2%, one would think that there are a lot of
people out there who are very hungry for employment. That has not been my experience. The biggest challenge my company faces right
now is finding good employees. This made me wonder what’s going on in this
country that is driving a general malaise in the workforce.
I tend to use a lot of sports analogies in running a
business. One of my favorites is the
example of how a successful company must attract the best people in the same
way a championship team selects the best players. It is also critically important to have the
right people in the right positions. You
won’t make it very far in the NFL by having your wide receiver play on the
offensive line. Jim Collins’ book “Good to Great” emphasizes the importance
of effective staff placement. Since the
team is of critical importance, this applies more pressure to hiring the right
people. The days of hiring based upon
whether someone can fog a mirror are gone forever.
Last year, I attended a preservation conference where RudyChristian spoke on the serious decline of people trained in the traditional
building trades. The general lack of
interest from the youth of America in the trades has caused many schools to
discontinue offering these degrees. We
experienced this phenomena 15 years ago when it became increasingly difficult
to find talented craftsmen. As a result,
Re-View began to invest in automated equipment that enabled us to manufacture
period work without relying on master carpenters for every process. These investments allowed the company to grow
despite the dearth of experienced talent.
Now we are having a major challenge just finding people who want to work
in general, never mind finding someone with experience in their trade. If the people who are protesting raising the
minimum wage to $15 applied the same amount of energy to showing up for work
and applying themselves every day, I have a $15+ job available for them right now.
This made me wonder whether we are dealing with a
generational trend. Is there something about
the psyche of the Millennial generation that contributes to my challenges in
finding people with a strong work ethic?
Millennials are defined as people in the United States who are 18 to 35
years old. William Strauss and Neil Howe
wrote several books on the Millennials and generational theory, and they state
we are in a period of generational crisis where the current generation is
demanding change. This crisis is largely
a result of 9-11, the economic downturn, and the stagnation in government. Some of the prominent traits of this
generation are a sense of entitlement and a narcissistic demeanor. Jean Twenge wrote a book about the
Millennials titled “Generation Me” where
she concluded that narcissism is markedly higher in the Millennials than previous
generations. I think I’m on to
something.
So let’s take a look at how these generational trends affect
a business. Millennials have a distrust of
the country’s institutions, which includes companies like mine. They don’t think in terms of what they can do
for the company as much as what the company can do for them. Their work is a means to engage in other
endeavors rather than as an opportunity to create a career. Millennials expect to get paid well and move
up the corporate ladder as part of the deal, not as a result of expending the
extra work to improve your ability and standing. It’s better to get something for nothing than
have to work hard to earn it. Sitting
behind a computer terminal is much more desirable than labor intensive
occupations. Instead of being lucky to
have a good job, they feel their employers are lucky to have them show up for
work. After that depressing profile, I
am starting to agree with Twenge that we are truly in a crisis right now!
Although I generalize profusely about millions of people
above, these trends are having a dramatic effect on businesses’ ability to find
people who want to work in either the trades or manufacturing. Companies are going to have to pay more and
have better benefits while they receive reduced output. There will also be fewer people in the
marketplace looking for work that involves sweating for eight hours a day. If you want someone to work on weekends or
extra hours, you had better be willing to compensate them well for the
effort. Team building consultants will
no longer be able to use the term “There is no I in the word TEAM” since the
employment base is primarily concerned with themselves. It’s a new world, baby.
I guess we baby boomers have nobody to blame but
ourselves. From the start we spoiled our
kids with lavish birthday parties, organized sports for every season, the
latest in fashion, personal automobiles, etc.
Helicopter parents were always there to swoop in and take care of any
problem no matter how big or small. Kids
were too busy in the summer with their organized activities to hold down a
job. I guess I never should have
provided trophies for the losing hockey team back when I coached because I was
just encouraging that sense of entitlement. Essentially, we got what we asked
for.
So what is a business to do?
Last week, as I dropped my daughter off at college, I told her not to
worry about the fact that her art college was 60% female and that a high
percentage of the males were gay. I told
her she was more than capable of overcoming the statistical odds if she were
serious about finding someone to date.
My advice was to embrace the challenge.
I think that advice also works for businesses that are trying to attract
talent during these challenging times.
There are good people out there.
It is just going to take more effort and a strong dose of patience to
find them.
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