(Part one in a two-part series)
We have been conducting a lot of interviews for our company for many of the same reasons many of you probably are:
1. People retired
2. People were fired
3. We needed new people to grow our business
4. We needed to replace the last three great people interviewed as they weren’t the ones that showed up to work.
Now that I’m officially an old person, and can collect social security, I am starting to sound more like my parents’ and grandparents’ generations and Jonathan Trivers when it comes to work ethics.
I Googled “work life balance” to see what came up. According to Strategy+ Business, credit is given to a British man they called “the father of socialism,” Robert Owen. In the early 1800’s people were working 12 to 14-hour days, six days a week. His thought was to go to a more balanced workday of eight hours of work, eight hours of recreation and eight hours of rest. But it wasn’t until Gen Xers that the term “work-life balance” was even said.
Lately on the news, I have heard a new term from Gen Zers called “work to your wage," which is the reworded phrase we all know from growing up — work to the wage. For us, it meant we wanted to work to the wage we wanted, so someone would notice and promote us!
Today, the work to the wage mentality means that if I get paid minimum wage, I will do the minimum amount of work. In addition, 19 percent of Gen Z applicants bring a parent to a job interview with them, according to Fox news.
I believe true retailers, such as myself, have lost a lot of production time through the change in generations and now dealing with the “everyone gets a trophy” crowd in the workforce.
In the past (and some still today) retailer’s businesses were open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and many were open 12 to 6 p.m. on Sundays. Their people didn’t work all those hours, but they worked more than they do today. Seventy-eight hours then and today roughly 52 hours for retail flooring stores. Thirty-three percent fewer open hours and opportunities for our customers to come into the showroom after work. Most of us, including me, have stopped nighttime hours.
Many people will say that the internet has kept them productive, but businesses like Home Depot, Lowe’s, Floor & Décor are open for the convenience of their customers not necessarily their employees. HD for example is open 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday. F&D is open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. They are also going after our installers by being convenient as they can get their supplies early before coming to your location to load out their jobs. Again, this is lost business for many dealers.
I am not trying to beat up on the younger generations, and I know my parents and their parent’s generations did similar things to us, but it seems that the new generations pick all the things that were negative in the actions of the previous generations, but not all the positives.
I still believe in the phrase “effort=success.” But it seems today that everybody wants to be a millionaire but not everybody is willing to do what a millionaire did to become one.
Don Roberts is a 40 year flooring industry professional who has managed teams from seven to more than 700 to success. Don can be reached via email at don. roberts@myflorstor.com.