Offer career success instead of just jobs

Anyone looking for a job has a number of needs, depending on their specific situation. Of course, they will also have a number of wants. The workforce today has the widest range of ages ever working together. There are 19-year-olds grinding for their first real job, while people in their late 60’s search for a way to bring more money to each month, hoping for ways to shrink the constant increase in the price of just about everything. When you think about it, golf courses have been known for employing people in every significant age bracket. From the people cutting greens to the staff in food and beverage, there are many roles for young people looking to learn a skill or simply earn a paycheck. On the other end, there are those player assistants and folks helping on the range that make up a very different age demographic. All of these people come together to serve the needs of the club. They show up, do their job and repeat that story again and again during the season. The problem becomes the turnover, the constant in and out of people filling the important member-facing roles vital to building a service reputation. Turnover creates inconsistent, possibly downright lousy service. The crazy thing is that this hiring exercise seems to be repeated each and every golf season. Might it be time to try a new plan? Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to stop simply offering jobs and instead provide a path to long-term career success.

What if your club created a new framework for work? Instead of simply offering a job for X dollars per hour, your team could create work with an educational element, not only teaching skills that can be monetized over time, but information about career success, money management, retirement options, etc. Too many employers simply offer a place to work, a wage and a specific job. As the national story dictates, people today want more. Look at the world: over 65% of employees are not engaged in their jobs. The Great Resignation continues even during a recession while millions of jobs go unfilled. There seems to be a rather large disconnect with employer and employee. If you can forget about hiring employees to fill a job, instead look to find people who want to learn how to excel at work and at life. You may just find ways to build a team that digs in and then stays together, for a while, at least. Here are three opinions about building a better team in 2023:

• Hire slowly: Building a new program requires a different thought process and very different execution plan. Think about this program as elite, a cut above. You therefore need people to match the plan. Fast hires will not work in trying to create an elite team.
• Build a disciplined program of training and development: In this new world where talent is tough to hire and tougher to retain, build a program that not only develops skills for the role as advertised, but helps the person develop a wide-ranging set of skills that they can own and then use throughout your property as needed. Don’t just move people around; train them in each role as a new staff member for that area. After the initial training period, develop ongoing reminder sessions that help every team member build habits.
• Provide life skills training: As long as I can remember, I wanted my employer to present classes in areas beyond the job. First as I entered the world of work, then as a manager, looking for ways to add more clout to the job, providing information not available in most organizations. Why not develop a menu of life skills, money management programs, plus speakers on retirement, to become a part of this new idea. When you can build a better person for today as well as the time long after they leave your service, you may just find that you are the employer of choice in both your industry and your community. Maybe it’s time to stop offering jobs and begin to offer something very different than the club down the road.

Jack Dillon writes the In My Opinion post. Jack has been a blogger for Golfincmagazine.com for 12 years. He is a consultant, a speaker, an author, a motivator and expert in service, operations and in the golf shop. Get with Jack today to learn more. Contact Jack at jackd@careerdividends.com or call Jack at 407-973-6136.