I came across two interesting articles recently regarding today’s workplace. Location. Location. Location. focuses on the lifestyle first, jobs second theory.
A recent survey of 1,000 Gen Y recent graduates by the Segmentation Company indicates that 65 percent prefer to “look for a job in the place that I would like to live” rather than “look for the best job I can find, the place where it is located [being] secondary.”
This is especially true for our mountain job markets. Luring prospective employees for a job, and then filling them in on the lifestyle later often doesn’t work too well. Those of us who love the mountains may think it is everyone’s dream to live in a small (sometimes isolated) town and play in the outdoors all year long … but it’s really not. Targeting those searching out the lifestyle tends to lead to many more successful hires.
The next article deals with “What makes a great workplace?” Top Small Workplaces 2007 is a great read for our small resort town companies looking to hire and retain top employees.
“In all, these are companies that can become role models for both large and small companies struggling to lure the new generations of college graduates, who increasingly care more about their work environment than the size of their first paycheck.”
How true this can be in a ski town. How many people do you know that moved to a ski town for the size of their paycheck?
The bottom line … today’s workforce, whether in a small or large company, city or town wants to enjoy going to work. Employees want to feel appreciated, and if they don’t, they will quickly be looking elsewhere. It would be interesting to hear from ski town residents working full-time as to whether they find they leave their jobs more due to salary or the company environment. We may not be able to lower the cost of living in our areas, but we can definitely make more of an effort to improve our work environments.
I find that people move around among the resorts and if they don’t like the job they have, they are not just limited to the town they live in. They look at all other resorts as an opportunity too. It is definitely all about the lifestyle!