If you want to run a successful business, you’re going to have to hire managers who have sharpened their people skills like never before. You’re dealing with an emerging workforce that doesn’t even recognize the concept of “boss”. Young workers see human values as more important than the bottom line. These are some of the messages that came out of a tourism conference with the theme “Finding profit in Your People.”
Underlying the whole conference was one theme. With the boomer generation retiring, population growth slowing, and demand for employees growing, it’s going to get more and more difficult to hire good people in the future. Company managers are fools if they spend a lot of money and energy recruiting good people and then don’t make the effort to retain these employees by keeping them happy.
People want fair pay. But often more important than money is respect from management—and also respect from their neighbours and peers that comes from being seen as working for a business that does good for society. Coast Hotels & Resorts president Graeme Barrit said that his employees told management that they want good corporate citizenship from the hotel chain. “Show us how you fit into our community so we can be proud of working for you,” they said.
Max Valiquette, president of Youthography, a marketing and research company that studies youth culture, said that for workers in their teens and 20s, the image of health is important. They don’t want to work in restaurants that have an image of greasy food. Subway is their number one restaurant, coming ahead of McDonald’s (number two) as the eating spot they go to most often.
The opening keynote speaker was Linda Duxbury, a business professor at Carleton University who does research on the workplace, looking at issues such as human resource management and work-family conflict.
She said people ask her, “Help us recruit.” She replies, “No. Work on retaining employees.”
Duxbury was the speaker who stated that young people don’t want “bosses”. The Y generation—people in their 20 and early 30s—want mentors, coaches, she said. They don’t want to carry out orders mindlessly. They want to learn on the job.
In fact, workers of all ages put a high priority on learning. Dean Sockett, director of human resources for Keg Restaurants Ltd., estimated that the steakhouse chain spends more than two per cent of revenues for employee training.
Coast president Barrit said his company puts aside one per cent of room revenues for staff education which has four tiers, going from basic for the lowest level of employee to advanced courses for executives. He said “lifelong learning” was one of the most important things that staff said they wanted when they were asked for their input for a “strategic plan” for the hotel chain.
Young people don’t always realize that they have learned skills on the job, so managers should point it out when they do, said Valiquette of Youthography.
Another thing people value highly is having their own personal life away from the job. They want a work-life balance. For young workers, said Duxbury, free time, hobbies and having “a life” are more important than career advancement.
Keg’s HR director Sockett said that developing an employee-friendly policy paid off for his company. Keg decided to become an “employer of choice” in 1990. Using questionnaires, the company measured the satisfaction of managers with their job, as well as the satisfaction of employees working under the managers.
Sockett also checked to see where the Keg stood on salaries and benefits compared with similar companies.
Armed with all this information, the company raised salaries and benefits so that the Keg moved into the top 25 per cent of employers in these areas. At the same time it took measures to improve the quality of life for employees. It gave managers more time away from the job. It made life more fun for staff, running snowboard and ski competitions as well as a lip synch contest with prizes such as a week in Cancun for the winners.
Management also improved communications, developing a policy based on the principle that “telling more is better than not telling enough.” The result of all this? “We don’t spend an awful lot of money on recruiting because they come to us,” said Sockett.
For eight years in a row, the Keg has made the list of the top 50 best companies in Canada to work for in the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business Magazine.
In 2003, a U.S. survey found that annual staff turnover in casual dining is 98 per cent. For the Keg’s U.S. restaurants, turnover was 53 per cent in that year. The 45 per cent difference in turnover from the average translated into a saving of $2.5 million for the company, said Sockett.
One of the speakers at the conference told about going to the aboriginal community to find workers. Debbie Kobelsky, director of people resources for the Delta Bessborough in Saskatoon, said Saskatchewan’s aboriginal population is expected to grow from 135,000 to 434,000 in coming years.
She spoke of how employers must be culturally sensitive when dealing with these people and indicated that if they are approached properly they can be productive employees. Her hotel has developed policies that recognize the cultural and personality traits of aboriginals when recruiting them and managing them on the job.
The conference was also told that there is an untapped labour pool among people with disabilities—persons who have problems with hearing, vision, mobility, mental health and learning.
There are good reasons to hire them, said Malini Duguay, president of Line 1000, a non-profit agency that helps people with disabilities find and keep employment in the Ottawa area.
When these people are on the job, she said, they are trained, competent and dedicated. At the same time, they make up 12 per cent of a company’s customer base. And if they’re working it means they’re paying taxes instead of collecting employment insurance or other government payouts.
Excerpt by permission from Ontario Restaurant News. Copyright © 2005.
