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Employee retention is one of the biggest hurdles in the food service industry. But paying attention to generational difference among employees can help make your restaurant a place that workers want to be a part of long-term.
Baby Boomers, Millennials, Gen X-ers and Gen Y-ers—restaurants will usually have employees from each of these generations working in their establishments. While such diversity can be a good thing, age gaps can often cause turmoil within the ranks, and differences in learning styles can create problems when it comes to communication and employee retention.
Here are four things restaurants should consider when looking to overcome generational differences and boost retention.
1. Work means different things to different generations.
Meeting the expectations for each age group takes a little bit of creativity. Baby Boomers have a strong need to be recognized for the work they do and the accomplishments they make on the job. Millennials, on the other hand, come to jobs with certain expectations about what their employer should be providing, and they can be pretty adamant about having those expectations met.
2. Each generation learns differently.
How you train your employees makes a big difference. Millennials have very little tolerance for long education sessions—they expect training to be provided as they work and as they need to tap into that knowledge. Older generations are the opposite—they generally have a higher tolerance for those traditional classroom-style training sessions.
3. Communication for a 60-year-old is very different than it is for a 16-year-old.
The way employers communicate with their workforce needs to be considered generationally. Millennials want transparent, constant, complete information about everything. They also have a strong need to know why they’re doing what they’re doing—in other words, don’t expect Millennials to do something just because the company said so. Older generations, however, tend to be more tolerant and more compliant when it comes to doing a task the “company way.”
4. Career success is defined differently.
Millennials expect to move up the ladder fast and want their career path to be crystal clear—they work best when they know what needs to be done in order to succeed. But Boomers, for example, are different. They have a deeper sense of loyalty to their organizations, and they thrive under the belief that only the toughest, hardest workers survive.
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About the Author
Nick Powills, CFE, founded No Limit Agency in 2008 and serves as Chief Brand Strategist for the Chicago-based firm. No Limit is a full-service communications agency that establishes and elevates brands by bridging Public Relations, Social Media, Marketing, Advertising, Digital, and a lot of creativity, to best strategize well-rounded and successful campaigns for 50+ global franchise brands. By presenting visionary ideas and building real relationships, No Limit is able to create effective media branding strategies to help companies grow. Nick currently leads a staff of writers, media strategists, designers, social media experts and digital producers in an office think-tank where brands are humanized for strong, compelling media stories. Prior to starting No Limit at the age of 27, Nick spent four years working at a franchise PR agency where he mastered the art of building rapport with media outlets and creating newsworthy pitches for earned media placements. He holds a Bachelor of Journalism from Drake University in Iowa.
