By
Bob Phibbs
The truth is, Millennial generation employees leave managers, not companies. If you are wondering why you can’t stop millennials from quitting jobs all the time, here are five reasons and solutions.
1. Replace your outdated onboarding process
In the old days, you’d give an employee a handbook, let them shadow someone for a week, and you would feel they were trained. Most of them, however, were still really winging it.
That isn’t going to work anymore.
Why? Millennial associates are much less concerned with working for a company for a long time. When it gets boring, most will move on to another company before you have time to write them up.
You can’t just let them be a warm body who shows up, takes out the trash, and stocks the shelves.
WHAT TO DO:
Your employee onboarding must quickly make them brand ambassadors. Tell them why you are in business and how you are different from other stores.
Get them to try on your merchandise and view your Facebook fan comments. At the end of the first day, have a conversation with them about what they see as your strengths.
The object is to get them to connect with you, your brand, and your customers on that very first day.
2. Keep Millennials challenged at work
Employees nowadays need a challenge. Millennials are among the smartest, most curious, and most positive generations on the planet. However, due to smartphone distractions, they can also be among the least self-directed. If you only train them to stock, price, and clean, they will feel like serfs in your kingdom.
WHAT TO DO:
Cleaning and stocking are all part of the shop – but they aren’t yours. Retail is the connection between customers, your employees, and your products. The soft skills of building rapport and selling the merchandise should be your focus, not just the old saw: If you can lean, you can clean.
Spark your millennial employees with the passion to sell, and you can win a loyal, hardworking salesperson.
3. Create an inclusive culture
Outsiders are rarely genuinely welcomed if you have a stable base of senior employees who know each other. The newbie usually has to prove they are funny, smart, or can sell to the rest of the crew before they are brought into the fold.
The problem is that can make it feel like them, not us culture. Millennials, especially, are a we generation. Make them feel isolated or alone, and they won’t stand for it.
WHAT TO DO:
Make sure you find ways to introduce everyone to the new associate. Take care to build enough rapport with them from the outset.
That way, you can describe something your senior associate and the newbie millennial might have in common and break the ice. Be as concerned that they fit into your culture as much as how they’ll sell your product.
4. Incentivize and invest in training Millennial employees
Let’s face it, there are a lot of unremarkable businesses out there. If you are one of those where the products you carry can be found in many places, and the store experience is customers bringing their purchases to the counter, it will be a reasonably dreary job for anyone to work.
Especially for millennial employees. Especially for minimum wage.
WHAT TO DO:
Because you aren’t paying them the big bucks Millennials think they’re worth, it is up to you to give them the skills they can use when they move on.
It’s up to you to make your store a fun place to work, where people feel they belong, and where they look forward to coming.
Millennials, as employees, were taught only to respond when rewarded, so do things like promoting good behavior or great sales with lottery scratchers.
If you are more ambitious, consider how you can adapt the peer-to-peer model where associates can share their knowledge in a new way that is fun and builds community.
See also: How To Choose The Right Sales Training For Your Store
5. Don’t be rotten to work for
Oops, that smarts. I know. When I began in retail, I used to be rotten to work for. I’d kick them up the stairs with a promotion or out the door with a pink slip. While that worked in the early 80s, being hard-nosed or inconsiderate will alienate your best and newest workers.
Expecting Millennial generation associates to be at your beck and call by waiting to post the schedule on Friday for the week that begins the next day leads to resentment.
So does telling them they have to stay late.
As does telling them they have to train someone new...
Like any generation, they’ll repay your inconsideration by stealing, being tardy, or missing shifts.
How to keep the good ones:
During your training, be clear about what the trainee must do to get promoted. Let them know it is their job to make the manager look good.
When they add value and become indispensable in their present position, give them additional responsibilities and raises.
Stop Millennials from quitting your store
If you’re unsure if you are hard to work for, don’t hesitate to ask employees to review you. Make sure they know you are listening.
If you are doing all of these things and they are not working, you may need to do a better job of hiring millennials as employees.
Although you want to reach all Millennials, you may not be able to because many have been raised to get by doing almost nothing but still get the reward. If they won’t buy into your process and be successful, let them go.
Give care and concern to your Millennial employees and expect them to do the same for you and your customers. If they don’t, again, you must fire them. In that regard, they are no different from any generation's employees.
