Retail Observer

RETAILOBSERVER.COM APRIL 2024 32 Y ears ago, I waited tables to earn a living. I thought it was fun, fast-paced, and never boring. Plus, because so much of our income at that time came from making tips, I knew I could walk out with money in my pocket each night. Never mind aching feet, demanding guests, and earning less than minimum wage—I romanticized this job. Recently, I attended a musical theater event that had table-side dinner service. The server, Luna, was friendly, knowledgeable, and indefatigable. Her smile never wavered, even though she probably had more than 25 tables in her section! My evening companions and I noted that it took a long time to get served, despite her great attitude. I watched her, half-way across the large performance space, interacting with other guests, and inwardly admonished the management for trying to save on overhead costs by skimping on the number of servers. In fact, that wasn't the case. Staffing has been terribly challenging since the pandemic, and almost no one in the restaurant or service industry has been able to fully staff their establishments. Is this true for your business, too? One of my non-profit clients has had over 100 vacant positions for more than a year, despite active recruiting and signing bonuses. This is more than the Great Resignation we've heard about. This is the beginning of a demographic shift where the younger generations will be fewer in number than their predecessors. At the same time, soon there will be more traditionally "retired" people from the Baby Boomer generation. What might this suggest for our shifting, evolving workplaces? Can we develop a thriving multi-generational workplace that creates creative solutions for businesses that are short on finding good workers? Businesses should consider creating greater age diversity on their teams and set those teams up to learn from one another and create opportunities for those with more professional experience to engage in different opportunities. If we consider a workplace a subculture like a community with extended family, we can benefit from the young and the more mature working alongside each other. Here are three ways to make this intentional and successful: 1. Offer flexible work arrangements: we are still in the throes of awkwardness when it comes to effective hybrid working conditions. Some companies who had large physical spaces are trying to decide whether to reduce square footage or reduce working from home hours. But other sorts of flexibility can invite multi-generations to thrive together. This could include alternating work hours, integration of part-time, or project-time, and truly moving to performance-based work for some employees. Make the objectives clear and let them make their own schedules to meet the goals on time. 2. Create opportunities for cross-generational mentoring: there's nothing that says the only mentors are those who are more senior. What if we look at mentoring to learn and grow by learning from each other. Perhaps a retiree returning to the workplace has deep knowledge and historical experience in a particular field, and their younger colleague has greater experience with technology or updated research? How can we encourage real collaboration by inviting everyone to bring ideas and skills to the table and by not sticking to old stories about particular generations? How innovative could we be if we truly made the sum greater than the parts, instead of choosing one way of doing something over another? 3. Invest in communication tools and models: we so often assume that a diverse group of people will just "work things out" in their collaborative projects or programs, but it often takes a long time to create positive, productive working relationships when we just leave it to chance, specifically around communication. Create both a common language that's shared and ways to navigate challenges or disagreements so that the real work can happen on purpose. Create a Team Agreement as a shortcut to keeping a team calibrated and on track with their interpersonal commitments. Reward and recognize true collaboration. Consider expanding your ideas for staffing your team and hiring the "new" workers of the future. We have so much to learn from one another. SHORT STAFFED? CREATE MORE MULTI-GENERATIONAL TEAMS Libby Wagner Culture Coach Libby Wagner, author of The Influencing Option: The Art of Building a Profit Culture in Business, works with clients to help them create and sustain Profit Cultures www.libbywagner.com RO

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