Erica TenEyck has a startling statistic on Millennials. The average Millennial will work for 14 different companies in their career. It is very hard to retain Millennials in electrical distribution because they want to continue to move up the career ladder, they want to fulfill their career dreams, and they want to do it quickly.
TenEyck reports that NAED and PA Consulting conducted its survey on ways to recruit and retain talent. We heard from 180 participants. the people who responded say they consider every employee to be “talent” regardless of their position.
3 key steps to take with Millennials:
Identify and develop the internal talent pipeline. You must balance the individual’s needs with the needs of the business.
Implement a talent strategy. Build a case for change that is championed by senior leaders.
Use best practices. You must communicate and have a transparent approach to training talent for the future.
TenEyck makes an important point: This is not a Human Resources department problem. Senior management needs to create a plan for the next 5 years that deals with hiring strong Millennials to take over management positions in the future, and having a succession plan in place now before it is too late. Performance management is important. You need to ask who are the high potential employees who can continue to be high performers?
Also, how are you going to reward those high performing Millennials to keep them to stay. Most Millennials will not quit their job. They will quit not he way they are being managed.
TenEyck takes on the next big challenge: How do we get people excited about starting a career in electrical distribution? Millennials says “career” means having a defined path, advancement in the company and upward progression. They expect to be managed with trust, respect and the opportunity to be challenged. And what has accelerated a Millennial’s development the most includes having supportive managers, cross functional job moves, new development opportunities, and networking.
But it is impossible to get people excited about the career if they do not understand what your distributor is all about, and what your brand is. If you have a clearly defined brand, you can show the Millennial what they are about to enter, and get them interested in joining your distributorship.