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SMART MANAGEMENT 41 SMART TAN MAGAZINE MAY 2017 WWW.SMARTTAN.COM Jenny Backman has been in the indoor tanning industry for 23 years. She currently owns three salons in the Columbia, SC area, where she resides with her husband Wesley and two children. She loves the excitement and challenge of opening new salons and hopes to open a fourth salon within the next couple of years. Let's face it; times have changed. Open any type of industry magazine, search the web, turn on the television, or simply in general conversation…we are all talking about the millennial generation. The Wikipedia definition for "Millennials" is: A name given to the generation between the years of 1980 and 2004. I would even go a step further and say that the group of individuals that I consider having millennial characteristics are seen more with those born 1985 and up. This group grew up watching their Baby Boomer parents work 9-5 corporate jobs. One would think that this would produce hard working, like-minded individuals. Why are we not seeing this? I am a member of Generation X (born between 1960-80). We share similar characteristics to the Boomers and grew up understanding that to get things out of life, you must work hard and put forth 100 percent in everything that you do. Most managers and business owners are either Boomers or Generation Xers. Here lies the problem; we can't understand why the Millennials aren't naturally hard working and motivated by the same things that motivated us "back in the day". The first step is to forget trying to make them "be like you" or reason things the same as you would do. They are molded by an extremely different upbringing so we have to accept the differences and work with them. By no means do I believe that they also cannot be exceptional employees; we just have to approach things differently and figure out what gets them going. I've found within my business the single best thing that I can do is to make sure that I have a foundation for my business plan. We cannot assume individuals will understand what is expected from them if we ourselves have not taken the time to put this down on paper. A simple training session with your millennial employee is not going to cut it. You need to have a resource library and a means of communication with your staff that is constantly being updated. In my salons, we have a company handbook, operating procedures manual, "What's happening Now?" manual, equipment and lotion manuals, etc. My staff can also find a plethora of guides and information on our shared Dropbox that I require every employee to have access to. It is also important to have a communication tool such as a Facebook Group Page, group text or even simply email. I prefer Facebook Group because I can upload documents there, post pictures, and most importantly, see that everyone has "seen" my posts. The main idea here is to make sure that your staff knows you have expectations for them and that your business is structured to follow a model that you've designed. I believe all people, particularly millennials, appreciate and work harder in an environment with rules and structure. Once your foundation is set, you can move towards training your staff member to be a successful tanning salon operator. Understanding Differences in Generations to Build a Successful Staff Check back in the June issue of Smart Tan Magazine for Part 2 of this article.