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Managing Talent: Part 1

The employment world of yesterday is slipping away. Since the start of the Great Recession, many workers were simply happy to have a job, and even top talent had trouble finding greener pastures. Now, as the economy slowly finds its feet once more, clubs must consider how to hold onto their top performers in the face of a changing workplace, shifting generational cultures, advancing technology, and a host of concerns related to the new health care law, immigration reform and expanding workplace regulations.

On the Horizon

As NCA CONNECT reported last month, according to the Workplace Trends and Forecasting Program at the Society for Human Resource Management, the biggest issues confronting human resource management in the coming year are:

  1. Employee retention amid an improving job market
  2. Rising demand for expanded workplace benefits, such as flextime and telecommuting
  3. Cultivating upcoming generation of leaders while coping with baby boomers retirement
  4. Maintaining industry knowledge and hiring new skilled employees
  5. Immigration reform
  6. Rapid advances in workplace technology
  7. Social media employee recruiting
  8. Complying with health care (ACA) requirements
  9. Worker misclassification crackdowns
  10. Coping with federal and regulatory agency requirements

For clubs, this list can be broken down into two major categories: employee retention and recruitment and impending legal and regulatory changes. Part 1 of this two-part series will detail upcoming changes impacting employee recruitment and retention and what clubs can do to prepare for them.

As employers throughout the job market seek to retain their most valuable workers, they’ll have to overcome some of the backlash from the overwork and under-appreciation many employees felt during tighter times. The prolonged cutbacks that occurred over the last few years may have created a certain level of resentment among some employees. Now that the economy is beginning to generate new opportunities for top performers, many employees will reconsider their options.

Charting a Course

Clubs, like many businesses, will be faced with determining how best to increase job satisfaction, employee loyalty and, ultimately, employee retention without exhausting the vital resources the club needs to best serve its members.

In an interview with Bloomberg BNA, Lonnie Giamela, a partner at employment and labor law firm Fisher & Phillips LLC, advised, “Employers need to identify key employees from entry-level to upper-level management and take the appropriate steps that are unique to their businesses to retain these individuals. It’s thinking outside the box.”

Once the club identifies its key employees, it should consider adjusting offerings to appeal to those employees’ needs, desire for growth or interests. In addition to offering targeted, merit-based raises where the club can afford it, clubs can leverage many other options to help make employees content to stay at the club.

Expanding employees’ responsibilities through participation in targeted projects can help keep jobs interesting and engaging, while giving employees the opportunity to expand their skills and gain valuable experience—helping to increase job satisfaction and prepare them for future growth within the club. When employees feel like their career has the opportunity to grow and develop within an organization, they are less likely to feel the need to look elsewhere.

Upgrades to the work environment, such as additional technologies to support club operations can also help employees feel that the club is making an effort to improve the work environment. These upgrades show that the club is willing to invest in giving workers the tools they need to streamline their tasks while having the added benefit of increasing workplace efficiency.

Though this may not be an option for many clubs due to the service-oriented demands of the industry, many businesses are offering in-demand options to better help employees manage their time, such as flex time and telecommuting. Such options give employees the ability to better manage their work-life balance and can be a big draw for many workers. Clubs may want to consider other options to help employees manage their work and personal lives. Programs focusing on personal development, health improvement and relaxation are all options that lend themselves to the club work environment.

The Tides of Change

As Baby Boomers near retirement, younger workers are moving up the ladder in many workplaces—clubs included. When thinking about retention, clubs should also consider changes in employee wants and needs as the workforce shifts from Baby Boomers to Millennials.

Though many Boomers sought stable careers with one organization for the duration of their working years, Millennials, also known as Generation Y, often looks directly to the benefits of working for one organization over another and rarely has qualms about jumping ship for a bigger and better option.

Along with that mentality comes a different set of requirements in terms of employee satisfaction and contentment. In his interview with Bloomberg BNA, Giamella commented, “These are the same individuals who got trophies for participating, not winning, in sports,” Giamela said. “They seek acknowledgement.” Millennials want constant feedback and the positive reinforcement that lets them know they’re valuable to the club.

Employee recognition programs are great ways to engage younger workers without huge expenditures of club resources. Employee of the Month programs with small perks like special parking spots in the employee lot or a small write-up in the employee newsletter for particular achievements can go a long way toward increasing job satisfaction and showing employees that the club notices and appreciates their efforts.

The Knowledge Whirlpool

In addition to the expense of finding new employees to fill the slots of those who leave, the club takes a larger hit when employees retire or resign: the loss of institutional knowledge.

Especially in the club industry, learning every member’s name and preferences takes some time, but understanding how to best use that information to improve the club experience takes years. When older, more experienced workers leave, the club is faced not only with training a new employee, but also the loss of that employee’s institutional knowledge gained from years of successfully working at the club. With the potential for the mass exodus of many Baby Boomers from the workforce in the next few years, how can clubs help prevent years of knowledge from effectively going down the drain?

Developing and instituting phased retirement programs and mentoring programs that enable more experienced workers to impart their knowledge—and the lessons learned from their experience—to those who will be taking their place help the club.

Furthermore, as clubs are tasked with filling in their workforce—often from the bottom up—many may not find new employees with the skills they need to succeed in the club environment. Many younger workers lack basic communications skills and have little to no experience interacting in a professional setting.

As clubs recruit new workers, some clubs may also need to institute basic training programs to ensure new, younger employees have the skills they need to accomplish the work expected of them. Clubs can also start early by partnering with local schools for internship programs to start identifying and training the next generation of club employees.

The Technology Tidal Wave

As technology brings people closer and closer together, it is also enabling people to work farther and farther apart. In many industries telecommuting has become all the rage to cut down on costs associated with commuting and maintaining office space. Since clubs are based primarily on personal service and interaction, this trend is less of a viable option. However, technology has also opened up avenues for another kind of remote work: outsourcing.

Though this wouldn’t work for most club staff, it does create several new options for certain departments, such as club communications. Outsourcing certain work, such as the club website, newsletters or e-mails to organizations specifically equipped to create, update and distribute such communications can help clubs cut down on costs and staff time while delivering a better end-product to their members. As the trend continues to expand, it’s likely that new options and ideas for outsourced work will become available.

A New Frontier

Part-and-parcel with rapid changes in technology also comes changes to communications that will likely alter the way job candidates search for work and employers recruit new workers. Social media has become a new recruiting tool helping to instantaneously let employers reach out to many potential candidates.

Social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook are also latching on to the recruitment trend, creating new database systems and adding new programs and functionality to make them more useful to recruiters. Many employers and recruiters are also now listing jobs on social networking sites such as NCA’s LinkedIn Group to add a more personal and connected touch to the recruitment process, relying on personal referrals through peer groups to spread the word about new employment opportunities.

Forging Ahead

Clubs will confront many challenges in the realm of employee recruitment and retention. But with careful planning and preparation, clubs can establish programs and policies that take advantage of new opportunities to help them navigate the tides of change.

Part 2 of “A Brave New World” will explore the challenges clubs will face related to the new health care law, immigration reform and expanding workplace regulations.

Jackie Abrams is the National Club Association’s senior editorial manager.

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