Generations X, Y, & Z

When Best Buy launched an employee social-networking site, the company hoped to glean marketing ideas by connecting with store employees. Instead, they got higher employee engagement and lower employee turnover.

BlueShirtNation.com, named for the polo shirts worn by store staff, is gaining attention nationally as a way to use social networking to build a sense of community among employees. Not surprising, the concept has become a successful recruitment and retention tool for its young workforce; workers who may otherwise feel their voices are not heard and their personal interests are not regarded as valuable in a large corporate environment.

The social networking site now has 22,000 users and turnover rates among the employees who use it has declined. Clearly, the site has been advantageous for Best Buy. But Best Buy was also willing to take risks and listened to the feedback of its employees.

Originally created to generate dialogue among employees about employment and customer service-related issues, the site got off to a slow start. A group of employees were then invited in to share feedback on the site.

Now, employees can forums on topics of their choosing – from politics to NASCAR to issues surrounding store operations. This opportunity for employees to freely discuss whatever they want led to the site’s popularity and has been a boon to the company’s operations in more ways than one.

The fear of giving too much freedom to young employees is what holds most organizations from reaching their full potential.

The Boomer-centric organization (as I like to refer to those organizations that are heavily managed by Boomers and either fear change or refuse to change) would shudder at the idea of encouraging employees to openly discuss any topic of their choosing or post photos of their pets on a company site and during company time.

But during a time when Boomers will soon be the minority in the workforce, organizations need to be preparing for their future majority – and the majority values those employers that respect their opinions and take an interest in their personal lives as well as their professional development.

When the Urban Land Institute decided to focus their recruitment and retention efforts on professionals under the age of 35, the association’s older members feared the association would no longer be able to offer services of value to them.

This is a common fear of association leaders and members. For some reason, they fear that if they are inclusive of younger generations, those darn kids will run amuck and ruin everything. The opposite is true.

As with the case of the Urban Land Institute, the association shifted its focus on growing its younger membership and the association flourished – recruiting several thousand members within just a few years. Interesting enough, the association attracted more young professionals, but also observed increases within its older membership as well. The association gained a valuable reputation as being the ‘go-to’ organization in its field, benefiting from increased visibility and credibility from such a tremendous membership boost in such a short period of time.

Younger generations have a lot to offer an organization. When your organization makes the choice to ignore or neglect Generations X and Y, it is ignoring the future majority and neglecting to succession plan. Either way, there is nothing to gain.

Your organization must change if it wants to recruit and retain the next generation. The only thing to fear is fear itself.

Labels: Best Buy, BlueShirtNation.com, recruiting Generation X and Y, Urban Land Institute