Inc.com has an article from earlier this week discussing worker loyalty in regards to age. I don’t think there are any surprises here in that older workers are more loyal than younger workers. First off, I think this analogy is one of the best I have seen to describe Gen X and Y’s approach to employment:

Kevin Marasco, vice president of marketing at Jacksonville, Fla.-based Vurv Technology, a provider of Web-based workforce-management systems, explained that younger employees manage their careers as they would an investment. Just as they want to buy and sell a stock at the right time, younger workers want to build career equity by joining and leaving the right jobs at the right time.”They are also diversifying their portfolio in many cases — trying to get experience at large and small firms or U.S. and international firms,” Marasco said. “They are taking a strategic approach to building their career by using one job as a launch pad for the next.“

Exactly correct. This investment approach explains why career pathing is a difficult sell to the younger generations. Most smaller companies do not have the right jobs available at the right times for these workers. Now add in the utter ease of locating new opportunities through the Internet and you come to this fact:

The study, released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows that workers ages 55 to 64 have been with their current employers a median of 9.3 years, while workers ages 25 to 34 have a median tenure of only 2.9 years.

We fight this fact with our customers on a weekly basis. Many established, baby boomer managers struggle with a candidate who has a history of 2-4 years at each position in their career. Obviously, hiring companies are making an investment also and want that investment to offer a strong return. The key to the younger generations is to develop skill-developing positions for them and to stay involved in their development. These are old truths that still apply today. I am convinced that the majority of talented worker turnover is due to the manager’s indifference to the employee’s development.

Posted By Derrick Moe | Hiring,Hiring Salespeople,Sales Candidates,Sales Management,Team Management | | Comments(0)