Making Gen Y employees successful

Jan. 1, 2020
Generation Y is the fastest growing segment of the workforce. As one panelist put it, they’re bringing some more life and energy to today’s shop and industry as a whole.

NEW ORLEANS — Generation Y is the fastest growing segment of the workforce. As one panelist put it, they’re bringing some more life and energy to today’s shop and industry as a whole.

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“Gen Y is like a carbon track….We like the path of least resistance,” says Josh Ingram, a Colorado service center general manager and panelist. “We work to live. We’re not workaholics. We want to go play on our weekends. When our time is done, we go play and we play hard.”

Ingram, along with Taylor Hill, a service advisor in Massachusetts, and Charles “Chip” Wright, a technician in Delaware, shared their insight into their generation, born between 1977 and 1994. The three started with similar stories, two starting young working in their driveways with their dads, and the third coming into the industry after leaving jail and having few open options.
Each has employers who have helped them along the way. For example, Hill’s mentor has been a big influence.

“She kept me in the loop and just involved, wanting me to pursue newer and better things. She always has higher expectations for me,” says Hill, who has strong aspirations to own her own shop. “She’s always pushing me to do better than what I’ve done before. She’s getting me to the point where I’m never going to reach neutral in my career.”

Ingram adds that his employer understood the value of youth, and pushed him into training early on. Within his first two weeks, he went to an R.L. O’Connor training and later personal development training. That mentoring is key for this generation.

On the flip side, roadblocks like some of the generation not seeing these opportunities as a career rather than a job or being fed misinformation from the start are hindrances.

Wright, who says honesty is one of the biggest things the older generation can do to bring Gen Y into the industry, notes that he feels being told in tech school that they will be an A tech and make $80,000 a year deters a lot of his generation.

“That’s not true. … There’s very few people who come out of trade school who know everything,” Wright says. It takes a while for you to realize you don’t. “If you think you know everything, you’re never going to open your eyes to learn.”

This generation wants to learn, and will do so in a variety of ways. Moderator Dave Kusa, with Autotrend Diagnostics, reinforced that they like online training, but there is a misnomer that that is all they want. Any kind of training is good, including hands-on training. Ingram reiterated to younger, next generation students attending the discussion the importance of getting any sort of training.

“Your ongoing training should mirror your weaknesses,” Ingram says. “Without ongoing training, you won’t stay ahead of the pack, and two, you won’t be able to get back up after you fall down.”

In addition to what Gen Y wants from the industry and training, there are attributes they bring to the industry. Hill says they bring new ideas, charisma and the right tools to bring old world auto shops to the new world because of their technology background. Wright adds that they grew up with the technology and realize the way things were and how to bridge a gap.

In the end, networking and bridging that gap is a big step to get this large chunk of the workforce. Ingram says they bring some life and energy to this industry. “Unless the older generation says I’m OK with that, we’re going to have a problem.”

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