The "Youth"inasia of Retail

Fortune has an interesting article titled How to Battle the Coming Brain Drain.  The article discusses the current trends of business to remove workers as they get older instead of keeping them on for their knowledge and wisdom.

From the article:

"By forcing out the employees with the most experience, companies may be inadvertently pushing critical knowledge out the door before it is shared with the next generation."

A similar trend is happening in retail today.     Retail is promoting from within to such a degree that they are getting inexperienced and young people as their sales and store managers.   These new managers lack the years of experience an older individual may bring to the table and also lack the maturity level to truly lead their team to achieving company goals.   

From the article

"younger managers are going to find themselves thrown into positions that they're unprepared for. Some will no doubt find creative ways to succeed. But many are likely to experience burnout and failure, resulting in even more turnover that the company can't afford."

As I work in different retailers in my current position, I see this happening more and more each year.  Sales managers are getting younger and younger and it is not unlikely to see a group of sales people being managed by a 21 year old.   I am sure that most of those manager deserve the promotion but can't help but wonder if companies are doing them a bigger diservice by putting them into a position of leadership that they may not be able to handle.

Technology oriented retail also has another bad practice. The older employee is not viewed as the perfect candidate.    Big Box retailers look towards the younger candidate because they feel their customers will respond better to them.   They don't think someone who is 50 years old could understand and present technology as well as a young employee.    Big Box retail doesn't realize that Grandma and Grandpa are listening to their ipod, burning DVDs of their vacation and even playing of Halo2 with the grandchildren.   Companies like Best Buy are attempting to target the older customer but they are still using the younger sales person to accomplish this.

This is a mistake.    The consumer is getting older and it is far better to pair them with salespeople who have something in common with them.   A shared history or understanding of what that consumer may be thinking or feeling about the product they are purchasing will make it easier for the customer to buy. 

I have hired many people who were 50+ and had great success with them on my sales teams.    The 50+ employee's work ethic is much better than most 18 to 25 year olds and unlike younger people they have a bigger desire to succeed.   Income is critically important to them and not a disposable commodity.     And the 50+ employee had the desire to spend the time to learn something.  The GenX generation who think they could just jump in and do something without learning how to do it first, which resulted in more work for me  Yes, the 50+ employee may take a bit longer to ramp up to a good sales level, but they will be around longer and you won't have to spend the money trying to recruit their replacement so often.

If retailers continue the trend of hiring younger employees and ignoring the older candidate, they will eventually reduce their ability to provide a satisfying experience to the customer.   Without the older employee to provide a base of knowledge and experience, a young staff is only as good as it was yesterday.