Latest Thinking

The Employee Experience

Gone are the days of an employee spending an entire career working for one company. Today, companies battle to attract and retain top talent, with 60-percent of Millennials—known as the “job hopping generation”—saying they’re open to new job opportunities.

It’s no secret generational shifts are shaking up the workplace. Gone are the days of an employee spending an entire career working for one company. Today, companies battle to attract and retain top talent, with 60-percent of Millennials—known as the “job hopping generation”—saying they’re open to new job opportunities.

To attract and retain the talent of the “job hopping generation,” businesses must harness innovation to create a strong workplace culture inside and outside of the club and a compelling narrative of the benefits they offer over their competition.

To begin this process, it’s critical that you first decipher the key personality traits of Millennials. Millennials currently comprise the biggest percentage of the American workforce. When asked to identify what makes their generation distinctive, the biggest percentage of Millennials identified the generation’s use of technology as the distinguishing factor.   

For Millennials, everything begins and ends with technology. This generation has come to age with the rise of the Internet and entered the workforce with the advent of the smartphone. While less reliant on technology than Generation Z (born from 1995 to 2010), Millennials recognize the power of technology to not only access information but reach across the world to socialize and build new ideas.

In the club space, we first thought of tech as a tool to keep us more organized and have better reporting (like POS). Then, we realized ways that tech can drive revenue (like the ease of an online reservation system). Next, we learned that tech can enhance the member experience (like mobile apps, name recognition software and instant messaging). Now it is time to take that a step further and think about tech for the employee experience. Thus, clubs must fuse technology and innovation throughout their ethos to attract and retain top talent. To start, clubs should examine how technology is integrated throughout their daily operations to ensure it is meeting the preferences of Millennial employees. Clumsy systems are very frustrating to employees that are accustomed to clean interfaces.

Assessing this is as simple as asking your team if your current club systems are commensurate with their expectations. My guess is probably not…and if so, this is hurting your retention.  It is also important that your website and social media content is richly engaging and clearly speaks to the cultural values that sets your club apart from competitors. Employees take pride in your brand.

Another interesting trend that I have noticed is clubs having remote employees. Several of our clients have a key manager (usually in some form of a marketing portion) that does not work at the club. Millennials crave the ability to work remotely. Thus, a club’s employees for any one department could be spread across the country, meaning your communication strategy must expand beyond the walls of the office. To ensure that the message and the culture that comes with it doesn’t get lost, organizations must use digital innovation to develop seamless brand communication strategies targeted to their employees.

Along with a strong communication strategy, clubs must build a collaborative workplace culture. When it comes to collaboration, Millennials are adopting a broader meaning to the practice than their Generation X and Baby Boomer colleagues. Millennials don’t just crave the opportunity to collaborate with their colleagues, but 71% say they want the people they work with to be their “second family.” Your workspace needs to support this. Think about knocking down some of the walls so that your team can connect with the 10-15 other employees who are all contributing to your member experience.

In the face of an increasingly technological world and the new employee workplace demands arising from it, clubs must reimagine what work and their brand looks like. Turning to innovative solutions can spur business advancement. By meeting employees where they are with what they desire from work and presenting technological tools fulfilling their needs, you can not only foster collaboration and productivity, but decrease employee turnover. All of this adds up to the Holy Grail for clubs…a better member experience.