Prepare for What You Wish For: Hiring Educated Millennials

The automotive industry has jobs, good pay, and opportunity for advancement. You need workers who are dedicated, hard-working, able to put a sentence together, understand a complex business, and relate to customers while doing the math. This sounds like a perfect match for dealerships hiring college grads with any number of backgrounds – business, marketing, accounting, automotive technology, even English, Psychology or Philosophy majors looking to get into the business world. So, why are they so elusive, and why do you end up with so much turnover? The most recent NADA Workforce study shows a 72% turnover rate for sales people (39% for other positions). Millennials will happily answer an e-mail from a customer at 1 a.m., as they sleep with their phones attached to their pillows, but ask them to work in the dealership ten or more hours a day, six days a week, and they are outta there. Let’s face it, they are in their twenties and want a life. You’ll hate me for it, but I’m going to suggest that if more than eight or nine hours a day, five days a week is needed to do the job, with some other work here or there from home or elsewhere, you need to rethink what is getting done and by whom. Can you utilize different shifts, focus on busier times and provide more flexible time off policies? Capping vacation at one or even two weeks is not the norm in most other industries.

Millennials don’t think about work at a desk, and don’t divide work and home the way other generations did. Technology frees them to work from anywhere, anytime. They also want (and perhaps deserve) some security in exchange for hard work, which means a base salary that can pay the rent, and bonuses or commissions (depending on job function, of course) on top of that to motivate them. Minimum wage will not pay the rent or support a new family, and the uncertainty of the rest coming from commissions will turn many away. Look at hours, pay plans, the work culture and environment, and maket]he adjustments needed to hire and keep good people. It takes a long view, which is hard in a month to month business, but every study there is says that workers value recognition, support, and work/life balance more than just dollars.

According to an article in Forbes Magazine, 88% of Millennials prefer a collaborative work-culture rather than a competitive one, 74% want flexible work schedules, and 88% want “worklife integration,” which isn’t the same as work-life balance, since work and life now blend together inextricably.

If you stay “old school,” you will continue a cycle of hiring, firing, quitting and training. It may produce short term dollars, but is very costly over time. Think of how much productivity is lost every time a new worker joins the team. The Center for American Progress estimates the cost of replacing a worker at 20% of annual salary. Even though a certain pay plan was effective ten years ago, it may not be the right thing for today’s worker. There is also no reason to have pay plans that a PhD in HR is required to understand. More often than not, these end up as fuel for labor complaints.

What is the culture of your workplace? Do people feel valued and supported? Do they want to do well for the “team” or just for themselves (those are the ones who quit to work elsewhere for a buck)? Are their hours in the store productive (are your ups flooding the floor every hour of every day)? Do they make enough money to feel secure (but not enough to be ecstatic without commission)? Do they see a future with you, or just endless hours of scratching out a living? Are your sales people trained to be real product specialists, or do you just focus on outdated sales techniques (effective or otherwise)? Are you teaching and supporting ethical behavior, which would be especially important to Millennials? Are you making “green” efforts, recycling, utilizing less energy, and so on (which will impress Millennials)? Do your charitable efforts involve employees (another big plus)?

Dealerships will need to take a long, hard look at how they manage people and pay if they want to attract the best and the brightest, and then keep them. The opportunities are there for college grads, but they will turn to other industries if this one doesn’t reconsider the old ways and find new paths to success.